


How the Other Half Lives

by TheOtherCourse (kanevixen)



Category: Broadway RPF, LE CARRE John - Works, The Night Manager (TV), The Night Manager - Jean Le Carré, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom, jonathan pine - Fandom
Genre: Broadway, Crimes & Criminals, Dancing and Singing, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, F/M, Gen, He's surrounded by Americans, Jonathan is out of his element, Money, Money laundering, Moral Ambiguity, Multi, Mystery, Organized Crime, Singing, Slow Build, Slow Burn, and thespians, but I do love writing them, but he keeps running into more questions from the pretty leading lady, he's only looking for answers, musical theatre, slow burn romances kill me, true romance or convincing deception
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-06-08 02:03:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 46,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6834541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanevixen/pseuds/TheOtherCourse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after Jonathan Pine helped Angela Burr bring down Richard Roper's weapon export operation, he is still working with MI6 to bring down some of the world’s most elusive crime lords. Their first case puts Jonathan undercover, running surveillance in New York City on Nigel St Clair, an ex-pat known as ‘The Accountant’ for the Wallace Empire.  Nigel St Clair is leading a double life, a high profile numbers guy in a crime family in London and a Broadway musical theatre producer In New York City. The trail to the Wallace Empire treasurer has been littered with money laundering, drugs, gang violence, and murder. Looking for some kind of leverage to infiltrate The Accountant's life and business handling leads Jonathan to a leading lady in a new Broadway musical. Haunted by his own tragic past, Jonathan must again lead a double life of agent with a high moral compass and a psychopathic human hand grenade to detonate an epi-center of criminals. Will he survive the aftermath and who will be hurt in the explosion?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sweetoceancloud](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetoceancloud/gifts).



>  

 

 

 

**How the Other Half Lives**

“Wh-wh-where are you taking… me?” Kristiane giggled at the back of her friend’s head, rushing to keep up with his hurried steps.

Nigel St Clair took a stiff turn from 41st Street onto Broadway, his hand squeezing hers as they cut through Times Square’s late afternoon tourists. The sun had descended behind one of the many skyscrapers, but the day was still very much alive, the hum of the city buzzing at an energized clip. Taxi horns, bus engines and street peddlers filled the air with a cacophony of sound, playing the familiar soundtrack of her home.

“Whe—Nig—Where… Nig?” Kristiane’s feet kept his frantic pace northbound, but her voice wouldn’t carry over the steelpan music and the appreciative clap of the crowd pushing in and stomping to We Will Rock You.

He pulsed his hand around hers, confidently leading the way to a surprise location he’d planned for her. He’d been thinking of this since the first day he met his little bird almost ten years ago. Kristiane made her Broadway debut in a production of The Man of La Mancha, appearing and singing in the chorus.

One fateful day in July, the actress in the lead role, the woman playing Aldonza, had been hit by car while riding her bicycle through Central Park before the matinee. Mercifully she’d been uninjured, save a few scrapes and bruises, but she’d missed curtain call while filing police reports and filling out hospital forms. In a freak unprepared for event, the one standby and the two understudies for the role couldn’t step in for her, so the stage manager put Kristiane on.

From her first entrance, Nigel, in the audience with two clients, was enchanted, enthralled and fascinated by the petite singer with the wide innocent eyes, clearest voice and poorly fitted costumes. She wasn’t perfect in the role, too pretty, too young, but by God, she gave it her all. She hadn’t performed for the audience that day, she had done it for her, her passion for the stage, and her love of her voice floating over the notes. And she stepped offstage as a bona fide star with a fan for life in Nigel.

Backstage, the English businessman introduced himself to the twenty year old, using his status as trusted advisor in finance to one of the owners of the theatre to get in the door. An innocent discussion between the singer and the businessman led to dinner that night and an agent for her later, in another acquaintance of his.

Kristiane had gotten her first show by cattle call auditions, casting by type, as most chorus roles were young ingénues, and a great deal of luck. After meeting Nigel and her agent Darren, she no longer had to wake at five to get to six a.m. calls, her agent landed her appointment auditions for leading roles. Kristiane didn’t get all of them, but enough to keep her employed regularly.

Nigel remained friendly with his ‘little bird,’ as he dubbed her from the song of the same name in The Man of La Mancha. He frequented her shows, sent her flowers or gifts backstage, remembered her birthday and took her to dinner about once a month. He treated her well and respected the fifteen year age gap between them. He’d fallen in love with her; but instead of forcing a romantic or physical relationship on her, he settled for a solid friendship. He preferred having her in his life instead of risking her trust and losing her entirely. He never made it weird or uncomfortable, and both were happy enough as friends.

Nigel smiled down at her as he tucked her hand under and through his arm, closing the distance between them as they ducked another herd of people.

Kristiane’s eyes sparkled with her Broadway charisma and she bobbed her head, giving him the unspoken okay for whatever he had in mind. Some of their conversations were silent, trusting each other explicitly.

When they got to the intersection of 45th Street and Broadway, Nigel guided her across the street between two cement columns that supported the Marriott Marquis Hotel. The Marquis Theatre, located on the second floor of the hotel, was the future house of her next show. Fishing keys from his Armani trousers, Nigel unlocked the entrance to the street level stage door.

Kristiane squealed with excitement, reading the clues and sensing her friend’s hyper mood. Her voice twinkled and brimmed with a million questions. “How, how did you get those keys? When did you get them? How much time have we got? How did you do this?”

Enjoying her burst of enthusiasm, Nigel threw his long slim face back with a bellow of laughter. It was just the reaction he’d anticipated and Kristiane didn’t disappoint. “I pulled strings, little bird,” he winked, “for you.”

“You’ll have to show me where these strings are… some of us mere mortals want a yank.” That was the New Yorker in her, blunt, frank, and to the point.

“Stick with me, luv,” he said jovially, depressing the button for the service elevator that would take them to the green room backstage. The doors slid open, making next to no noise, specially designed to run during a performance without disturbing the audience.

They stepped in together, Kristiane wearing that doe-eyed, never seen this before, I can’t wait to experience it all expression. “Not been to this one, only the house,” she whispered, excitement stealing the body of her voice. “I saw Bernadette Peters in Annie Get Your Gun in this theatre.”

Mocking her, he matched her whisper, “I know. That’s why I brought you here.”

She pouted for show, sticking her lower lip out in displeasure.

“Ms. Peters rode this very lift actually.” He turned to face her and landed the bigger news. “You’ll be in her dressing room.”

The realization dawned on her slowly and her expression melted with it, from her playful pout, to doubt, to shock, to utter amazement. But she couldn’t fully digest the news before they reached stage level, the trip too short for realizations.

The doors shushed open into the green room, delivering them into a long narrow space filled with narrower chairs, sofas and serving tables. The staging area of a production was rarely actually green, rather a neutral gray with pops of color for the actors to wait for their cues in a communal area instead of their dressing rooms. This one awaited its new inhabitants, the eve of their arrival.

“Come on,” he encouraged to the roving eyes of the woman prowling through the somewhat generic space. Until the cast and crew moved in to make it their own, the room wouldn’t have a personality. “This way,” he instructed with a wave of his hand and tip of his head.

Within steps, the pair arrived in the small and crowded wing of stage right and onto the stage. Load-in had begun earlier that week, the crew already weeks into constructing and building sets, lighting techs refocusing lights and replacing gels, sound engineers testing wires and mics. Downstage, near the pit of music stands and nothing else yet, stood a ghost light, glowing in the darkened theatre.

“Welcome to your new home, luv,” Nigel announced, swooping her in and placing her center stage. He beamed proudly, brighter than the free standing light already there. Presenting her the house for her next starring role was a gift for her, one that he’d wanted to give since he first saw her ten years ago.

Kristiane floated down to the proscenium, her ready-to-please, let-me-entertain-you eyes sweeping over the sea of red velvet seats, a familiar view, but no less special. A theatre house held a certain majesty and respect, a pride all its own, and though she’d been in hundreds, it didn’t lessen its hold on her. She bounced on the balls over her feet, ready to perform every show she’d ever learned for her audience of one.

Two, if the man standing house right in the mezzanine made his presence known. He faded into the near dark wall, watching, waiting, investigating. Kristiane missed the stranger in her excitement. Nigel missed him for watching her.

“Nigel!” she puffed from holding her breath, “This is…” she shook her head, searching for a word, something to capture this emotion that nearly consumed her in hysterical happiness. A word that would describe all he’d done for her over the years. “Have they made up another word for gratitude yet?”

Straightening his Armani jacket, he bragged, tongue firmly in cheek, “Stellar always suited me."

“You’re a good man.” Kristiane stepped in closer to him, hiked up on her tippy toes and gave him a sound hug. “Thank you,” she murmured airily. “You’ve always been there for me, and I’m gonna do you proud.”

“You always do, little bird.” He stroked a hand over her back, breathing in all she was, savoring her, committing every moment of her to memory. He closed his eyes, feeling her breathe against him, her arms around his shoulder blades, her breasts pressed against his chest, her legs lining his. Savored every bit of her and then released her, holding her just that beat longer than usual.

“Are you okay?” she asked quietly, peering up into his face.

“What?” He blinked tears away quickly covering the moment with a wave of his hand. “Oh, of course, luv… of course, I am,” he cleared his throat, “Excited for you. I get to… show you off to the world.”

“Nigel, I’m ready to take the stage for you now, you know that. But please, don’t put all your chips on me. New musicals are risky… I’ll give it my all, but so few succeed. You’re a good man, I trust you… have I earned this much of your trust?” Realistic expectations helped her get by in the business when nothing was a done deal, and things changed within a New York minute.

“I have every confidence in the material and you as my star.” He stood straighter, refusing to believe otherwise. He’d done his research, he knew the market for shows wasn’t always lucrative, but he believed in Kristiane over all else. No one would convince him any different.

She quipped with a roll of her eyes, “I’ve been called the dreamer… they haven’t met you.”

Changing the subject, Nigel confessed, “I have something for you.”

Incredulously she widened her eyes at her friend. “You’ve done so much!”

“One more gesture… I had to,” he shrugged.

With a dubious grin, she reminded, “You say that every time.”

Inwardly, he hoped it wouldn’t be the last. “I wanted to wait until opening night but I don’t think I can.” His voice dropped as he produced a small gift box from his back pocket. “I had this made for you, as a reminder of where you started and who you are.”

Kristiane furrowed her brow and wiggled a forefinger under one of the taped flaps of the white gift wrapped box. It was small, small enough to fit in a pocket, but bigger than a jewelry box. She took comfort in that much, as his gifts were never quite that extravagant. She’d made it clear over the years that she wouldn’t accept anything too expensive or imply more than their friendship would allow for.

“For the rest of my life,” he paused to inhale deeply, suppressing a shiver, “I won’t forget the way you took that stage as Dulcinea.”

She tsked, “Aldonza.” A running joke between them. In The Man of La Mancha, Don Quixote had been struck with love at first sight when he saw Aldonza. She was a simple peasant, selling herself to men in town, but Quixote imagined her as the complete opposite. Her name became a bone of contention between the gently insane man and the kitchen whore. He called her Dulcinea in sweetness and kindness, while she felt she only deserved her given name because of her station in life.

Nigel and Kristiane kept up the back and forth over the years. Nigel believed her to be the most beautiful woman while she cried common, jaded and not as he saw her through rose colored glasses.

With the wrapping paper ripped away, Kristiane opened the gift to find a music box keychain inside. It was a small box stenciled with pretty pink and blue birds all over it. The box itself opened with a clasp like a jewelry box and the inside played ‘Little Bird’ from The Man of La Mancha. He’d obviously had the keepsake made especially for her, because it was their history. She hugged it to her heart and then attached it to her bag with her other keychain. “I love it so much, Nigel.” She gave him another hug. “I’ll treasure it. Thank you.” She pulled back, marveling at the overwhelming number of gifts. “You’re a good man and you’re so good to me.”

“Sing for me,” he imitated The Phantom of the Opera, a glint in his eyes that he reserved for Kristiane. “Sing for me, my Angel of Music.”

Dropping her bag at the foot of the ghost light, she did as he instructed to make him happy.

*

Jonathan Pine adjusted the blue tooth headset on his ear, paired with his mobile in his hand, and speed dialed Angela half a world away. He was only three minutes late for their nightly briefing while he was undercover in a New York City Theatre. Unexpectedly, the man he’d been investigating arrived at the theatre with a date after the crew had left for the day. He hugged the wall and maintained his low profile while the pair talked. He couldn’t hear their conversation from so far back.

The call connected, “Burr here.” Clipped, precise.

“The accountant has arrived at the theatre,” he whispered into the headset, not to raise suspicion with the two people center stage.

“What’s he done?”

“I think he’s dating. There’s a woman with him.”

“What? Who? Is she part of the portfolio? Part of his business?”

“No, I don’t think so. He’s chattin’ her up.”

“Pine, who is she?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen her about yet. First time I’m seeing her.” He’d been in New York City for two days, and had begun his surveillance straight away. MI6 had an agreement with the hotel owners and the theatre management to investigate a possible money laundering operation within the new production. Pine had to keep his presence on the down low until rehearsals began in a fortnight in order to have his cover as catering chef for the cast and crew.

“What’s she look like?”

“Female. Brunette. Looks to be… mid-twenties, I think...”

“Take a photo. I want her in the file, if she knows St Clair. Find out who she is and if we can use her. She could prove useful.”

While Angela spat out order after order and plan after plan, Jonathan used his phone to snap a shot of the female on stage. He texted the picture to Angela to work with on her end with Singhal, to get a name and identity so he could angle in close to her, possibly use her to get close to their intended target.

If he allowed himself the luxury and if he personally subscribed to these things, he could admit that she was an attractive woman, the woman on stage. He couldn’t subscribe to these things anymore. He got himself into more scrapes, bruises and sores because of a woman than he cared to admit. He’d shut that part of him down, shut it away and locked it up.

But he could confess that this one with a diamond shaped face, wide blue eyes that he could distinguish from the distance, long thick wavy hair the color of butterscotch and shapely legs that her jeans had the good sense to hug was a pretty one. He pegged her for a performer and his suspicion only confirmed when she opened her mouth to sing.

Angela heard it. “What’s that?”

“She’s singing,” he deadpanned. When he agreed to case out a theatre, Jonathan hadn’t considered the acting, singing and dancing part of it. The reality dawned with the sounds coming from the woman on stage. Not that the sounds were unpleasant, quite the opposite, but he'd been wholly unprepared for it. He liked quiet and loved silence.

“It’s quite lovely, that.” She paused, presumably to listen to more through the long distance phone call. “This her?” the picture had arrived at its destination.

Jonathan grunted a sound of agreement, watching the simple act of a woman singing, but this one seemed different somehow.

“Disney princess, that one. Do ya reckon that St Clair is shaggin’ her?” A blunt question, but Jonathan read the motive behind it. Everything centered on working the Accountant and getting to him.

Ignoring the surprisingly accurate comparison, Jonathan focused on the girl and Nigel St Clair’s response to her song. The dark cloud of uncertainty dimmed or cleared from above his head. After tracking the man for several months, Jonathan watched the dealings in Zurich, London and now New York City play on the Accountant. The stress wore him down, the pressure of working, cooking the books, running numbers for the bigger shark grayed his temples and had him popping ulcer meds like candy. A true genuine smile brightened his face and made St Clair look years younger, not that he was an old man. A few years shy of that status, but Jonathan would’ve easily guessed ten years older when he first laid eyes on him in London.

“She’s not stopping,” he finally informed Angela in a flat tone. He heard fingers on keyboards from her end, and wondered if she might just work through the night with another face to concentrate on.

“She will.”

“If you want me to follow this one, I’ll need a muzzle and a lifetime supply of paracetamols.”

Angela snorted. “Care package on its way. Anything else to report?”

“I’m in place. Rehearsals start in a week for the new show. I’m doing what recon I can once the crew leaves for the day.” Patience. That was the key to this mission, but Jonathan felt the need for action build at the base of his spine. The tingle of anticipation of forward momentum clawed at him, swirled in his head, and put him at the ready.

“Wait for my signal to move forward with the next bit. Got Joel runnin’ sumthin’ here. A few days… Stay out of sight for now. Ear to the ground, learn what you can ninja like.”

“Understood.” He rung off until the next check in and disappeared into the darkness of the theatre.

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By Tuesday morning, when Jonathan gulped down the last of his coffee and threw back the last of his stale bagel, Angela had some new information for him. Nigel St Clair had been spending his Sunday night with an actress, Kristiane Taylor, the current star of an off-Broadway show called Bat Boy and the upcoming star of Pretty Woman the Musical. The new musical was a vehicle for her, produced by Nigel, the very production Jonathan had started to investigate.

Within 36 hours of laying eyes on her, Pine knew more about her than he’d ever need to know, like her schooling (graduate of Tisch), her career (four Broadway shows, one off-Broadway and two national tours) and her accolades (a Tony nomination and two Broadway choice awards, whatever those were). She was well-known within the theatre community, but hadn’t pursued any television or movies to get any recognition beyond Manhattan.

The information Jonathan hadn’t learned yet, the important aspects of his investigation into The Accountant and the money laundering for the Wallace Empire, were high on his to-do list. And Angela’s, by the demands she put on him during a hasty stream of consciousness on a Skype call. “Find out what their relationship is – sex, love, marriage, sugar daddy, uncle, distant relative, landlord – we need to know.”

“Coworkers,” Jonathan slyly reminded. He poured himself another cup of coffee from the pot in his hotel room. He’d thrown the curtain open on his less than spectacular view of another Manhattan skyscraper. Management had offered a room on the ninth floor overlooking 45th Street, instead of one of the prime higher levels with a view of Time’s Square. Having come from hospitality in another life himself, Jonathan understood the necessity of maintaining the highest number of high demand rooms for paying guests, which he was not, but it didn’t improve his enjoyment of the view any.

Gray reflective glass from the Minskoff Theatre would be his view for the next however many weeks, for the duration of five weeks of rehearsal and into the production of the open-ended run show. Pretty Woman, the new musical based on the Julia Roberts movie, had begun load-in already, rehearsals starting next week. Pine hadn’t yet figured the angle The Accountant was using to launder money through the Broadway production, but that was the reason MI6 placed him there.

Jonathan crossed to the window, coffee in hand, and cutoff another Burr tirade that he’d only half listened to. “I’m trailing St Clair today. He’s got a conference call with London at 10am local time, and a lunch at the Golden Unicorn at half past 12.”

“Brilliant. Is it bugged?”

“It is. Mr. Chang showed me how to make the braised scallops yesterday.”

“And while he plated, you excused yourself?” Angela led, enjoying some of his masquerades while on duty.

The Golden Unicorn was Nigel’s restaurant of choice near his office in the financial district, and had a private room on reserve whenever he came to New York City. He hosted clients, associates and future prospects there. Jonathan knew that he needed ears in that room, and it had been one of his first setups when he arrived. “Resembled somethin’ like that.”

“We need some kind of lead over there, Jonathan,” she urged. “Joel saw large sums of money moved around within the Wallace Empire yesterday.”

“Was… was it The Accountant?”

“It doesn’t look like it – they’re setting up for…”

Jonathan caught on after learning the family behaviors in the MI6’s files. “For? A change of regime? Or a shift in power?” There were two behaviors that were worth tracking closely within the family empires. A change of regime meant that a high ranking officer within the organization was to be replaced. A replacement could mean that he was killed working for the family or by the family. A shift in power usually played out like a hostile takeover between mafia/cult-ish families and their rivals, if one began holding too much influence.

“The Wallace Family,” Angela forwarded the email from Joel to Jonathan as she explained, “Has been in prime position for a long time. Dear ol’ Robert is reachin’ the ripe old age of 70, he might be lookin’ out for number one.” She clicked through some of the recent surveillance photos of Robert Wallace, a lean hard-looking man with scraggly hair and a permanent leer on his aristocratic face. The once charming and attractive man in the bespoke suits had soured through the years for his arrogance, entitlement and liver spots.

“What of… Bobby Jr.? Next in line?” Jonathan had trailed him for a few weeks when MI6 started concentrating their efforts on Wallace.

“After the Hammersmith incident, he’s been keeping a low profile.” The Hammersmith incident had been the national tragedy that made Robert Wallace go from a mild interest for MI6 to public enemy number one. A street gang war broke out in the west London district where they had only terrorized local merchants without causing any physical harm. Annoying robberies and loitering were their MO. Unfortunately the rivalry escalated into a four-day looting and rioting for territory, and ended with the assassination of William Basingstoke, the Lord Mayor who tried to declare peace.

The police arrested 33 people in connection to the rioting, eighteen from one gang and fifteen from the other, plus the unaffiliated shooter. The explosives, teargas, pepper spray and all the weapons, including stun guns and the kill weapon Colt Mustang handgun on the mayor, had been traced back to an import by the Wallace Empire from New York City. It had been the single biggest import of weapons of that kind in England, and MI6 couldn’t ignore or discount how dangerous the family was. They had to make a stand and find something that could dismantle the regime that included fraud, money laundering, importing, exporting, drugs, and weapons.

The Wallace Empire had their hands in everything, but so far, MI6 didn’t have enough evidence to bring anyone in, or arrest anyone. Angela’s strategy was to weaken the backbone of the entire conglomerate by infiltrating a high ranking officer within the Empire. The money. The source of all their influence. The Accountant. Nigel St Clair.

“So is it… is it St Clair? Is he next in line? If not Bobby Jr…” Jonathan watched tourists pointing this way and that at street level, seeing none of it. The new word from above captured his entire focus. The operation landed square on his shoulders if The Accountant was the successor.

Jonathan crossed back into the kitchen, leaving his half-drunk coffee in the sink for housekeeping to take care of. With subway reliability, he could follow Nigel from his Wall Street office in the financial district to his lunch in Chinatown.

*

Jonathan emerged from the subway station in the financial district just in time to see Nigel step out of his office building. The predictable and reliable man worked like clockwork, his lunch hour always at 12:30pm, no matter where he was in the world. When he appeared at street level, Nigel looked less than his usual well-put together appearance. His tie had been loosened and set askew along his chest, his jacket slung over his forearm, and his trousers slightly wrinkled. He resembled Atlas holding the weight of heaven on his shoulders. The briefcase that usually hung at the end of his fingertips was also noticeably absent.

Ruefully, The Accountant glanced up the height of his skyscraper office building, shook his head as if to shake off the morning and strode towards the subway. Jonathan followed from across the street, the mark in control of his movements. If Nigel slowed, Jonathan mirrored to keep him in sight.

Nigel pulled his mobile from his breast pocket to check his messages as he walked. And he smiled! It was a visceral release of some of the tension he carried from moments ago, and Jonathan noticed the difference in him at once. He’d been following, shadowing and studying Nigel from a distance long enough to see and interpret a change in the older man.

His steps increased only a fraction but enough to be noticeable for Jonathan. Nigel didn’t go far, only three blocks and waited, mobile in hand. He appeared to either answer or initiate an email or message, when his thumbs typed out something into the device. MI6 hadn’t been able to tap into his phone yet, it was an effort they were working on. Pine hadn’t any idea of it was personal or business, but judging by Nigel’s demeanor, it was personal.

The singer from the other night appeared from the underground subway station. The two embraced, and Nigel lost or forgot the worry and stress from a few minutes ago when he left his building. He was happy with this woman, this Kristiane Taylor and it showed on his face and the way he carried himself around her.

Kristiane noticed his tie and straightened it for him after their hug. She fixed the material to line the buttons down the center of his chest, and tightened the knot under his chin. Her face, painted in a light teasing expression, did all the scolding for presenting himself in such a way, words weren’t needed.

Lovers? Jonathan couldn’t pinpoint the relationship between The Accountant and the actress, but the familiarity between the two was undeniable.

Keeping a safe distance, Pine followed them to Nigel’s lunch at the Golden Unicorn. He hid himself across the street at a rival restaurant to listen when the couple melted into the midday crowd already occupying the opulent atmosphere. Pine’s equipment, set up in haste behind Mr. Chang’s back, couldn’t be the most reliable, but he’d record for another listen later. Angela wanted to listen once he’d uploaded the mp3 file.

“… you brought me…” a giggle followed and a few airy breaths, “… me here? It’s been…” The audio cut out when Pine fumbled with the dials, hidden in his pocket. He missed some of the female’s excited exclamations. Although he couldn’t mind much, she hadn’t said anything of any vital importance.

 _She might not_ , he thought to himself unapologetic for his snap judgement of her.

Pressing his left hand over his ear with the earpiece in, he ordered the first thing that caught his eye, giving the waitress a brief distracted order of lemon chicken and rice. Busying himself with reading the menu, Pine listened in on the lunch date.

After placing their orders and they were left alone, Kristiane inquired, “You sure you’re okay, Nig? You don’t… seem yourself.”

A nervous exhale from her companion. “Yes, yes, fine, luv. I’ll get through… you know I will.”

“I worry ‘bout you, Nig. You work too hard, too much – and too often!”

An ironic, twisted huff escaped his throat. “Little bird, you know me… I- I- I’ve got—“

“You’re leaving again, aren’t you?” she interrupted him before he stuttered any further.

“So intuitive.”

She sighed disapprovingly. “Nig, when you have to tell me something that you don’t want to, you ball your fists and you grimace. I see it on you from miles away, before you come to me.”

Silently, Pine implored the singer to ask the questions he had for Nigel, willing her to do his job for him. Where, when, how, who… all answers he needed to know.

“A meeting. Overseas. I have to see to a few issues personally,” The Accountant intoned slowly, reluctant to spill his affairs in public or to her, it seemed.

Jonathan sent a text message to Angela while he listened. _‘The Accountant. Unscheduled journey. Any idea where he’s going? JP’_

“When do you go? My last performance as Shelly is tomorrow.” Her pout wound its way into her tone, disappointed with the idea that Nigel would skip out on her.

“I wouldn’t miss that for the world, luv, you know that. I’ll be there for your last performance, but I must leave immediately. After. Immediately after.”

“Where are you off to this time?”

_Good woman!_

Nigel hesitated, and the silence stretched all the way across the street. Jonathan didn’t hear so much as a breath taken or a glass against the table. His spy phone chirped, and it made him jump, a ridiculous fear slivered down his spine that The Accountant would hear it. The bugging device only worked as an output.

Angela’s response: _‘Nothing here. Find out. The Accountant is your mark. – Burr’_

Nigel lied, “Nowhere important, luv. Not to worry.”

But Jonathan heard just that in his delivery, worry coated his words.

“You’ll be back for the start of rehearsals.” A question wrapped in a statement.

Jonathan didn’t hear a response from Nigel, but Kristiane reacted to whatever it was he’d done.

“Nigel,” she tsked, her surety rung high, “You have to be there. You’re the producer, you can’t miss the first rehearsal.”

“Luv,” he tried to appease her with a gentle purr.

“No, Nigel, you have to be there. You’re the main investor. The cast, the crew… they’ll be looking to you as… as—well, you just need to be there. It’s your show.”

“I’ll try.”

“You be there,” she pressed, emphasizing each syllable. “You’re the support, the backbone… we- we- no, not we – _I_ , I need you there.”

“All right, luv, all right…” he exhaled slowly, giving in to her persistence. “All right, I’ll return for the first rehearsal.”

“What could be so important that you would think of skipping out on that?”

Jonathan sat back, considering this woman. She had influence on The Accountant, and that was exactly what he needed. Of course, he didn’t know if she could be trusted, or if she was included in some of Nigel’s shady deals. Jonathan couldn’t ignore that this petite actress had pull with The Accountant or that her righteous assumptions affected him.

“I—Bobby Jay and I have a… reunion.”

 _YES!_ Pine jumped for his phone and hurriedly sent off a message to Angela, finally something of significance to tell her. MI6 had been looking for traces of Bobby Jr. since the fallout of the Hammersmith incident. Bobby Jr. rarely left London if at all since it happened, one year ago. The only son of Robert Wallace had been the reason Jonathan chose to work with MI6 after the Roper Tradepass mission finished. The Hammersmith incident was too big for him to ignore, he had to bring those fuckers to justice.

Like he once told Angela: _If there is a man selling a private arsenal to an Egyptian crook and he’s English and you’re English and those weapons could cause a lot of pain to a lot of people, then you just do it._

**If there is a man selling a private arsenal to English gangs and he’s English, and you’re English and those weapons could cause another English man’s death, then you just do it.**

_‘The Accountant. Meeting with Bobby Jr. between Thursday and Monday. Unknown location. JP’_

Although Jonathan had to keep his interest on Nigel, he knew Angela wouldn’t order him to follow to the yet unknown location. It was too close to the original plan. They had to concentrate on the more solid lead. The Accountant and his interest and investment in this Broadway musical. Jonathan couldn’t be caught following him in another country, not when his cover was already set up in New York City.

Kristiane scoffed in disgust, a blend of a cough and a laugh that sounded foreign from her. It was an ugly noise and he’d only heard lovely pure sounds from her.

“Kristiane…” Nigel scolded, “He’s not that bad.”

“He might not be but his wandering hands are.

“Bobby Jay – he’s means well and he wouldn’t hurt you,” Nigel explained evenly.

“Given the right atmosphere and circumstances, Nigel, I have no doubt he would. He’d delight in it, in fact. He’s got that… leer about him. He’d…”

Nigel cut her off with a stern assertive denial. “No!” It wasn’t loud or clipped, rather a persuasive, presumptive argument that quieted her at once. “My friend would never harm you. You’ve got the wrong impression. Enthusiastic and energetic, he’s been friendly, but he wouldn’t harm you. I wouldn’t let him.” Nigel released some of the tension in his voice, easing up to a lighter not so authoritative response. “Bobby Jay, underneath it all, is a good one, little bird. If you trust me, you can trust him.”

The room had gone noticeably quiet, too quiet that Jonathan thought his equipment gave out on him. But it wasn’t that, in the end, as a waitress entered the room to bring in the food for the dining couple. The disagreement over Bobby Jr. put a wall between the two… friends… lovers… business associates… Jonathan didn’t know.

They didn’t seem affectionate enough for lovers, but some people just weren’t. They seemed almost too affectionate as friends, too familiar for mere business associates, their relationship deeper than producer to actress. Jonathan Pine had made it a habit of people watching, to learn as much about them as a bystander. All those years in the hospitality industry had taught him to stand back and allow others to show him who they were, instead of any practiced speech or adopted persona.

Kristiane could’ve sulked from the verbal spar with Nigel or she could’ve shrugged it off. She sounded wary when she finally spoke again. Gun shy and burnt from the mild exchange. “I trust you because you respect me. I don’t get that from your best friend, Nigel. I’m sorry that upsets you, but all I get from him are cheap attempts to feel me up.”

Spirited woman, Jonathan thought to himself.

She might just be the person they needed to gain access to The Accountant. No other woman stood up to him. He had money, power and influence, so most women melted at his feet. Not this very American and brash woman.

Nigel took his time to answer and it became a low rumble, something deeper and more earnest. “There may come a time when you will have to trust him. For my sake.”

Jonathan picked up on the cryptic meaning but the actress either ignored it or missed it. She returned to a happier tune. “You – Nigel, I trust you.” The last word was lost as she shoved some of her food into her mouth. And around the bite, she hummed her appreciation. “You need to bring me back here more often. This is soooo good.”

With the important bits out of the way, Jonathan read a text response from Angela. ‘Congrats. You’ve a new mark. Trail the Disney Princess till The Accountant comes back – Burr’

That was precisely what Pine did. The petite woman walked to the subway with Nigel after lunch and took it uptown to Columbus Circle. She entered a dance studio and didn’t come back out for two hours. When she did, her cheeks were flushed red, her hair swept up in a messy ponytail and sweat shone on her neck. He followed her cool down walk home, or what he could only assume was her apartment. She spent two hours there, presumably to shower and change, for she reappeared with her hair dry and flat against her shoulders and down her back over a different t-shirt. He again followed in her footsteps to a theatre on 41st Street, where her name appeared on the poster outside the door, Bat Boy the Musical.

Jonathan Pine took in his first off-Broadway show that night. He couldn’t confess to being any closer to The Accountant for it.

Maybe in proximity.

Nigel’s seat was four rows in front of Pine’s.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A strange phenomenon surrounded this Broadway singer, Jonathan observed from watching her. After curtain call, a good number of audience members stood online outside beside a barricade near the stage door to meet the actress. From his vantage point across the street under a fire escape for the Ford Center Theatre, Jonathan watched Kristiane become a minor celebrity.

She greeted fans, signed playbills and programs, posed for pictures and genuinely interacted with anyone who approached her. Her face was wide and open, her eyebrows raised, her lips parted in a wide grin, as she enthusiastically greeted everyone who shoved a playbill at her. She laughed at their jokes, asked questions, and gave them all whatever time they wanted from her.

Considering the number of people that she sailed through and dazzled, she was only there for an extra fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. All the while, Nigel patiently leaned against the brick wall, hovering near the end of the line, waiting for Kristiane to greet the crowd. He boasted a full chest and proud expression with every squeal and dazed autograph seeker that walked away, happier than before. Jonathan saw a personal stake in Kristiane’s success in Nigel, a remarkably selfless joy.

Her celebrity status didn’t die out entirely when the last picture was snapped and the ink of the last signature signed was dry. This recognition followed her. The closer within the radius of her theatre, the more people she’d wave to or stop to exchange a word with. From what Jonathan could discern from a safe distance, they were peers, fans, previous cast members, friends and business executive types like Nigel St Clair. All would approach or wave or catcall to her.

True to his word, Nigel rushed in as the house lights were dimming for Kristiane’s last performance. Jonathan, from his station across the street, saw the disheveled older man duck into the theatre. Over the two days since Jonathan began learning the singer’s routine, where she went and who she saw and considering how he could possibly use her to get closer to his intended mark, he saw Nigel’s appearance drop. His hair was always at odd angles off his head, his clothes rumpled and sweat stained. His only reprieve seemed to be Kristiane.

Jonathan decided to forgo seeing another performance of Bat Boy, since he’d be present for all the rehearsals of the new musical starting in a few days. He couldn’t say that he disliked musicals, the first had been painless enough, rather they just weren’t his thing. He’d timed the length of the performance for her show well enough that he didn’t have to stand watching the theatre from the outside.

Once he saw Nigel slip inside, he went to a diner close to Madison Square Garden to pass the two plus hours until curtain and check in with Angela. He asked the host of the diner to sit him in a quiet corner, out of the way to take the phone call.

“So who is she then?” Angela’s succinctly greeted when his call connected.

“It’s a lovely evening here, Angela. Thanks for asking,” he tossed back at her in a monotone.

“Good to hear. Who is she then?”

Jonathan unrolled his silverware from the cloth napkin on the table, smoothing and pressing the material flat. “From what I can tell, no more than an actress, a local celebrity and a Starbucks enthusiast.”

“Is that all?”

“I wouldn’t say that. She’s been in one at least three times today for an iced coffee.”

Angela almost sounded amused. “You’re a laugh riot,” she matched his serious tone with one of her own. “What of the Accountant?”

“Still here, in the theatre at present.” He sat back as the waitress in the light blue diner uniform delivered his meal with a wink and a crooked smile. He assumed she was flirting with him by the two pots of coffee on his table and the mound of pickles on his plate.

“Where are you? Why aren’t you at the theatre?”

A half chuckle pushed out from him, an ironic sound. “I sat through the show the other night. The Accountant can’t do much during a show. The staff usher people out if they pull out a phone.” He didn’t mention how riveted Nigel was with Kristiane during the performance, and wouldn’t risk losing a moment of her performance for something else.

“Their relationship?”

“She’s slept alone the past two nights, Nigel doesn’t go inside. He’s not invited.”

Angela nodded into her files on The Accountant spread out on her desk. She suspected as much since this American woman didn’t appear anywhere in them until a few days ago. “The Accountant has a private charter plane outta JFK tonight,” she swiveled around in her computer chair to take a glance of the video baby monitor.

Her daughter Emma had graced the world with her presence three weeks after Roper had been made off with by some very angry Middle Eastern men. The elder Burr found that motherhood was rewarding especially when her daughter’s first word had been ‘warrant.’ But she couldn’t abandon her job entirely, and the emergence of the Wallace Empire had pulled her from her maternity leave.

Jonathan made a sound of acknowledgement at Nigel’s whereabouts and plans. He already knew of the impending journey, of course, but the details were new. Taking a bite of his grilled chicken sandwich, he hummed as another thought came to mind. He swallowed. “You got someone on Bobby Jay? Are they out of London?”

“Joel followed the money trail and Bobby Jay is at the front of it at the mo’. Off to a new place in the Dominican Republic. Joel followed and will report back.”

“And Nigel is meeting him there.” It was a statement. Jonathan knew that Nigel and Bobby Jay met up on occasion, either at Nigel’s villa in Monte Carlo or Bobby Jay’s estate in Abu Dhabi.

“With Nigel off, will you get close to this Broadway starlet?”

Jonathan pinched the bridge of his nose when he propped his elbow on the table. He knew this would be the next part of his assignment, get the girl to trust him to get closer to Nigel. “How would you like me to do that?” He asked with doubt in his voice.

“Chat her up! Get in her knickers! Date her if you have to.”

With that said, Jonathan cringed into his coffee at Angela’s dismissive yet direct command. “So easy to say out of hand… but you know how ill-advised and fated my love affairs have been. You witnessed—” He stopped himself from saying any more than that, it wasn’t necessary.

Burrs did indeed know, saw it with her own two eyes, and as much as she didn’t want to brush aside the soul of the man, there were lives at stake – again, this time. She wasn’t heartless; direct, driven, tough, maybe radical at times, but not completely devoid of emotion. “I know how you felt about Sophie,” she imbued her voice with a tenderness that she used to comfort her husband, “I saw it that day we met Zermatt. Her death sparked your interest to help me.”

She paused, paying respect to the woman who made it all possible. If it hadn’t been for Sophie and her sacrifice, Angela would still be chasing Richard Roper all over the map and God’s green Earth. “Jonathan, I’m not blind to it. I’m not asking you to do this to hurt you.”

“I’m aware of that. My… hesitation lies in—“ he reconsidered the phrasing that best suited the situation. The operation revolved around one man, and it wasn’t him. Instead he went back to neutral territory. “Is there another option? That we haven’t considered yet?”

Angela clicked her tongue, “I’m all ears. You got ‘em, I want ‘em.”

Jonathan knew that someone somewhere had a plan for Nigel St Clair, a far more heinous plan for him than MI6’s, and he knew that it was no longer a matter of weeks before it was carried out. Most likely days, and MI6 would lose their chance, the window would close. All the same, Jonathan hated using this to-be-determined innocent woman as a stepping stone or a vehicle. A means to an end. “And if she’s not the answer?” he asked in a way of accepting, albeit reluctantly.

“She may not be, but she’s the closest we’ve got to him—We can’t use Bobby Jay, he’s too far down the rabbit hole.”

“He was born there,” Jonathan added, coming around, fortifying his decision to hurt if he had to for a purpose.

“Nigel St Clair doesn’t allow many into his inner circle. We know of Bobby Jay, of course, they went to Uni together. We know about this girl, this Disney Princess because he’s close to her – in some way – here, but we didn’t know of her before. She’s our lead, Jonathan. A personal connection.”

He released a breath out through his lips in a silent ooh, his moral compass spinning to polar opposites.

“If we could’ve used his poor old mum, we would’ve. But she’s barking and the staff at the St Clair family estate just watch over her, oblivious as to where their salaries come from.” Angela had been thorough in her investigation of Nigel and his status as The Accountant, having done the footwork before involving Jonathan. They’d only neglected New York City up to this point, strictly because of all the red tape they had to pull at to get jurisdiction.

“I’m not seducing an elderly woman old enough to be my grandmother,” Jonathan punctuated his point with a stab of his fork.

“She’s not that old.”

“She looks that old!”

Despite herself, Angela smiled into the phone. “Need I remind you, in all of this, that this Disney Princess might not be as innocent as she looks? She might be in on the financials.”

“These American ideals… they’re in my head. Innocent until proven guilty,” he said with a shrug.

“This one has been hanging around the guilty, that’s cause enough for concern.”

“Got it,” Jonathan acknowledged. There was no way around it. Angela had a hunch on this singer, so he’d have to work her like a mark. She was almost one now, this Kristiane Taylor.

After a few more minutes, he shooed Angela off the phone when he heard Emma fussing through the monitor. He finished his dinner, and traipsed back to the theatre for another night of surveillance. He parked himself near the stage door, to wait for Nigel and his new assignment, Kristiane to reappear.

There were more people gathered around the stage door, so Jonathan hid himself among the crowd to listen in on the couple. Nigel came out from backstage carrying Kristiane’s bag, Jonathan recognized the oversized thing from her lugging it all over Manhattan. Nigel glanced at his watch and then at the black sedan idling at the curb, then at the stage door almost willing the performer to appear from it.

When she did, with about four people in tow, Nigel handed one of them Kristiane’s bag. “Listen, little bird,” he said rushed, “I’ll have a courier drop off the keys to theatre on Sunday. To your place. I’ve got to go, luv, or I’ll miss my flight.”

“I wish you could go with me.”

Jonathan saw Nigel’s resolve falter with the woman’s statement. But he couldn’t blow off this meeting and he couldn’t ignore his responsibilities, no matter how he wanted to. He squeezed her hand in his, his eyes etching her hopeful face to his memory, something Jonathan saw the man do more than once.

“My apologies, little bird. If I could be there, I would. In a heartbeat. In a New York minute. But I have to do this.”

She nodded, her hair falling down off her shoulder to frame her face. “Get back for the first rehearsal. I need you there.”

“I’ll remember.” He began walking towards his hired car, reluctantly dragging himself away, his feet going but his hand firmly in hers until his arm extended as far as it would go. He longed to hold on just that minute more, just that little longer, any person standing near the barricade could see that. Jonathan saw Nigel’s unwillingness, the waver in his decision to go this meeting, in favor of staying with his muse.

Their fingers dropped away, and New York City resumed its hurried pace. Nigel found his stride and followed through to his ride to the airport. Kristiane didn’t miss a beat in greeting the admirers and well-wishers at the stage door, the people that came for her.

Inconspicuously Jonathan watched Nigel’s car fade into the brake lights of traffic and take the turning onto 8th Avenue at the intersection. He then turned his attention to the amenable and friendly star as she spent more time at the stage door, conversing and thanking each person that stayed to meet her. As she worked her way through the line, he formulated a plan to meet her himself, as his mission while Nigel was away.

*

“OH!! My apologies,” he exclaimed. Using his lightening reflexes, Jonathan grasped her arms on the impact. Flesh, bone and muscle, the alive mass of her… Kristiane Taylor was real and alive and in his arms after he plowed into her, forcing a box of her belongings that she’d been carrying to drop. The plastic container unbalanced by the velocity of its clash with the concrete sidewalks, spilled her things in radius at their feet.

Jonathan did it! He finally did what he was meant to do, what Angela had been screaming at him from across the pond to do. Day ago. It was Sunday and he arranged a meeting with the Broadway singer, the one he’d been following all over Manhattan Island for almost a week.

“My apologies, so sorry, Miss. I wasn’t… mindful of where I was going.” In his head, his voice sounded rehearsed but he allowed himself to believe it. For the sake of this charade, for the mission that he believed in, he followed through. A dinner party with friends, a night out drinking herself silly with cast members, and another night singing in a cabaret type show as a guest were all perfect opportunities, but he let them slip through his fingers. Instead, he’d arranged the tried and true accidental on purpose meeting by chance and circumstance.

Of course, his knowing where she was going to be at any given time helped!

On Friday afternoon, while she walked to her dance class, Jonathan overheard her on her mobile with someone she referred to as Lissa. Another performer from the bits he’d heard.

“… the keys. Nigel said—get in… I can let you in too…” He could only hear every third word in the foot traffic and not wanting to follow too closely. When she stopped to cross the avenue up near Columbus Circle, he heard the rest. “I’ll meet with you on Sunday. At the theatre. Nigel trusted me with the keys, and I trust you, Lissa. As long as you help me bring something up.”

Kristiane laughed when she heard her friend’s reaction through the phone. “That’s how it works,” she managed to say in between laughs. “You know what I mean, Lissa… yeah… yeah… I’ll see ya then… noon. Yeah at the theatre.” He heard more of her New York City accent when she spoke candidly. The lazy speech pattern and lack of enunciation righted when she stepped into character he noticed the nights he watched her perform.

The actress crossed the street with the light and stopped at the door of the dance studio, her mobile still pressed to her ear. “Lissa, I gotta go. I’m gonna be late and Terry’ll throw me in front of traffic if I’m late for his class. Again. Yeah, he’s back. About three in the morning, a very diva type entrance… into my bed. Lost his way…”

Jonathan couldn’t help but think he’d failed in his surveillance of her, not knowing about another man in her life. Someone so close that they spent the night together. That only added to his already mounted confusion over her relationship status with Nigel.

“Terribly, terribly sorry,” he repeated as her rounded annoyed eyes finally met his. Jonathan ignored the sense of surrealism that invaded his psyche. He’d been following this woman for days and finally found a window in which to talk to her.

Kristiane sighed dramatically, pulling out of his grasp almost at once, taking a look around at her stuff scattered by her feet. “It’s… well, it’s not okay… but yeah, I guess it’s okay… I’m good.” She bent to start collecting her miscellaneous books, pictures, trinkets and figurines from the overturned box.

“Please allow me to help you,” Jonathan knelt down beside her, reaching for a blue bound script and righting the box.

“I can get this,” she insisted, sliding her box closer within her reach. These were her creature comforts of her dressing room, all mementos from past productions. A hardback copy of Daddy Long Legs, a musical she did four years ago. A miniature collection of Grimm’s fairytales from her national tour of Into the Woods. A tiara and figurine of Belle from her run as Belle in Beauty and the Beast. A faux candlestick, also from her days in Beauty. A portrait that a young girl drew of her as Belle in the yellow gown. The enchanted rose. Also an array of cast photos, all taken on her opening night with the cast before everyone climbed into costume, from every production Kristiane had appeared in since high school. Cards and letters from people that had admired her work.

All of these mementos meant so much to her personally and professionally, each held a sentimental value beyond monetary means. Having it scattered on the ground on 45th Street tugged at her heart, but she’d never show that to a stranger. She dropped her chin to her chest and began returning her things to the inside of the box.

Jonathan sat back on his haunches for a split second to watch this woman meticulously load up each trinket and letter with care. “I’m terribly sorry, Miss,” he tried again, reaching for a white cow that has rolled away on impact, “You must think me a…” He handed her the figurine, “… a duffer.”

As tourists and native New Yorkers stepped over and around them, attempting to avoid trampling on them or her stuff, Kristiane froze and stared into the aristocratic face of the man who bumped into her. “I _might_ think that, if I knew what it meant…”

“Sorry,” he chuckled twice lowly, “A duffer, an oaf, a clumsy person.” Jonathan cautiously collected some of the photographs that had fanned out from a protective folder.

“Definitely, yes! I definitely think that,” she bit back, snatching the folder from his proffered hand. She thought better of her behavior and took a calming breath, releasing the petulant New Yorker looking for a verbal spar. The man couldn’t know what all of this meant to her and why would anyone do it on purpose? “Where were you going in such a rush?” She looked over the smartly yet comfortably dressed man, noting that he fit in among the general population. Aside from his outstanding good looks, nothing else stood out about him. Kristiane normally wouldn’t give him a second glance. “A sale on sharpening those cheekbones of yours? You might be a little far north, try the fashion district.”

Jonathan had the good sense to humor her and her joke with a laugh, hoping to alleviate her soured mood some. He’d irritated her, he realized with the ‘accident’, and he hadn’t meant for it to be so jarring. “Actually, I’m supposed to meet someone called,” he produced a small piece of paper out of his pocket and read her name, “Kristiane at the Marquis Theatre.”

If Angela intercepted the courier with a ‘note from Nigel’ as he asked her to do…

“Well, you found her.” Kristiane gracefully got up on her high heeled booted feet. Bending back down to retrieve her box, she was stopped by the oaf that caused her to drop the damn thing to begin with.

“Please allow me, the least I could do for all the trouble I’ve created.” He easily picked up the full crate of Kristiane’s stuff and nodded for her to lead the way.

She didn’t let on that she neither wanted or needed this man’s help, but he’d already done it. She huffed. “So I got a message with the delivery of the keys,” she jangled a set from the back pocket of her jeans, “That the – caterer? –would be coming by.”

Jonathan bowed his head subserviently. “The caterer at your service. Nigel St Clair hired me—“

“From London?” she interrupted, addressing his sophisticated and polished English accent.

“Indeed. Jonathan Pine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm new to this genre and working out the kinks as I go.


	4. Chapter 4

The clink, slide, snap and release of the lock with the corresponding key in the door made a satisfying rhythm on most days, but Kristiane had a tagalong. She’d been expecting Lissa and wouldn’t have minded if her dear friend had done the trampling instead of an over-sized oaf. Kristiane expected it from her friend of the past five years and soon-to-be costar in Pretty Woman.

Lissa, short for Melissa, collected two Tony awards for Best Supporting Actress in a musical in the past five years. She was the equivalent of Judy Greer in romantic comedy movies, only in the theatre world. She was vivacious, spunky and quick on her feet, almost too quick. She was also always late, had a wicked bad habit of biting her nails and falling in love in the blink of an eye. Falling in love happened so often, she racked up frequent flyer miles floating on a high of her newest fling or crush.

As Kristiane gave the door a kick to open, she glanced over her shoulder to check that her box was still behind her. To her relief, it was. But to her disappointment, the man carrying it was there too. She heaved the heavy door closed behind him, switched the box to let someone in remotely and the CCTV camera focused on door should someone buzz.

“The caterer you said?” She stabbed the up arrow for the elevator with her forefinger.

“Indeed. Yes,” he said, slipping back into his host night manager voice, “The caterer. Hired by Nigel St Clair.”

Dubiously Kristiane nodded, but her gaze brushed over him from head to toe, once they loaded in the cab of the elevator. He wore a casual black polo with the sleeves pushed up his forearms and bunched at his elbows, dark blue denim jeans and gray suede chukkas. “And why do you need to be here, backstage?” She pressed the button for the elevator to take them to stage level.

“I was hired to feed the cast and crew for the next five weeks until performances. Breakfast and lunch, any snacks or beverages,” he answered smoothly, wondering if the personal approach of meeting Kristiane had been the wise choice. The cold vibe he felt from her would cause a shiver if summer hadn’t come to New York City early. “The Marriott graciously left some equipment—“

“—Equipment?” she asked suspiciously.

“Yes. Tables, burners, coolers, equipment… to prepare and serve. I have to find a good place to set up for the actors rehearsing in the ballrooms and the stage crew working in the theatre.”

Reluctantly, she gave him an inch, although she still seemed put out by his presence. “So you’re scouting…”

Together they stepped from the cab of the elevator into the green room. One shoulder brushed the other person’s and Kristiane stepped away as if he’d burned her. With a rueful smile, Jonathan indicated with her box towards the dressing rooms. He said apologetically, “Please lead the way.”

Silently he coached himself, ‘This is new territory. This is her space. Play the part, Pine.’

Jonathan Pine, the caterer, had not been backstage, on stage, in sound booth or the house, box office, concession stands, merchandise area or the coat check. However Jonathan Pine, MI6 agent had cased every inch of the theatre and it took some coercing to get his brain switched over, to play the role of hospitable employee addressing the star of the show.

Kristiane spun on her heel, her gorgeous mane of hair fanning out with her, and marched the length of the green room to the small landing that branched off to three lead dressing rooms. The stage manager had been in with the crew earlier in the week to do all the dressing room assignments, including the principals. Kristiane’s name painted on a star hung on the door, Lissa Tuggle’s to the right and the male lead Ray Matias to the left.

Momentarily forgetting the man with her, Kristiane breathed a deep sigh as she turned the knob of her dressing room door. For her, it was the sign of a new beginning, a new adventure, though she knew how much hard work it would be too. Stretches, scales, emotions, sleepless nights, long agonizing days of learning, relearning and practicing to get this new show into her body. But the new start also meant a new family, new friends, more experience, another role to add to her already impressive resume and a reason to keep doing what she loved most in the world.

She flipped the switch for the ceiling lamp and the room, bigger than her kitchen and bedroom combined in her Hell’s Kitchen apartment, flooded with golden light. She smiled into the room, a blank slate to be filled with her trinkets and mementos from previous productions. Kristiane made a beeline for the windows opposite the door, opened the blinds and took in her new view of 46th Street, the Lunt Fontaine Theatre and the Empire Hotel across the street.

Jonathan recognized that she was experiencing a moment, something significant for her. Respecting that, he moved in quietly behind her and placed the box on the makeup table under the mirror surrounded by caged lightbulbs that lined the left side of the room. “Your name…” he began politely, “Kristiane. I saw it on the poster by the box office, when I was looking for the stage door.”

She reeled around, almost surprised to see him there, and crossed her arms under her breasts. “Before you plowed into me.” The New York City attitude was strong with this one, and she didn’t seemed to want to let it go entirely.

But for every ounce of attitude that she delivered on him, Jonathan only tried to be nicer. He grinned. “Yes, I’m sorry about that… again… but you’re the Kristiane Taylor, the star of the play—“

“Musical,” she corrected without blinking, an automatic response.

“—Oh, yes… right. I apologize. Musical. Kristiane the star and the woman,” he produced his piece of scrap paper from his pocket once more, the same that he scrawled her name on earlier for his charade outside, “I’m meant to meet with…” He imbued his voice with enough shock and awe to melt her icicles, at least he hoped to, piecing together their meeting for her.

Despite the chip on her shoulder, she smirked, “Know a lot of Kristianes, do you?”

Shaking his head in the negative, he chuckled again just to soften the tough girl attitude. “You’re my first.”

Their eyes met briefly at the statement, before Jonathan filled the awkward silence that followed with another question. “Do you know Nigel St Clair then?” His hand flapped once, gesturing towards the poster he saw downstairs. His voice evened out and smooth as silk when he asked to diminish the motivation behind it, as if he’d inquired for the closest ATM.

Kristiane tightened her arms crossed around her body and she almost flinched. If Jonathan hadn’t spent so much of his life studying people, he would’ve missed the subtle change in her demeanor and the defensive fire behind her eyes. She cleared her throat, broke eye contact briefly and infused her voice with a carefree lilt. “Yeah, I’ve met him.”

After Jonathan had witnessed two potential dates between her and Nigel, he expected more of a response from her than they’d ‘met.’ Why was she cagey about that relationship? “I haven’t had the pleasure as yet.”

“As yet…” she snickered in a girlish way, “That- that was terribly British.” She dropped her arms to her sides, releasing some of her East Coast annoyance with it.

“It was, I’m afraid. I’m embarrassingly, hopelessly and shamefully English.”

“Self-deprecation. Also terribly British. Next you’ll insult me in the most complimentary way and ask me to agree with you.”

“Well, aren’t you the charmer?”

“All right there, English. You made your funny.” She made a shooing gesture with her hands towards the exit. “Clear out. There’s stuff I need to do here.”

*

An enchanted gasp of untold longing sounded from Lissa beside Kristiane’s ear. “Who. Is. That?” she asked, dramatics dripping from each word, each syllable elongated to the extreme.

Kristiane called it, she knew before Lissa arrived that she’d fall ass over tit for the latest addition to their new production. Jonathan was just her type, male. Moreover, he was tall, blond, blue-eyed and built. His physique lean and lithe, perfect for Lissa to climb and cling to like her rock wall at the gym.

Lissa stood behind Kristiane, clutching her shoulders for fear of swooning on the spot at the mouth of the green room. The girls were headed to the stage to sneak in a song or two in theatre before going back to retrieve more of Kristiane’s things for her dressing room from her apartment six blocks away. On the way, they were met with an eyeful of able bodied man unfolding a six foot table on his own. It was his third he’d done after hefting some of the storage containers the Marriott left to use for his catering.

The six foot plus man moved with an agility of a panther, sleek, focused, precise. The muscles of his back rippled against the soft cotton of his polo as he lifted the slab of metal and fiberglass from its side up onto its legs. The object rolled when Jonathan lifted it and shifted it forwards. His body followed through until the table was situated on its legs and the man was bent over the top of it, his jeans highlighting his ass as the material stretched with the strain.

That was the moment Kristiane and Lissa saw him, and Kristiane felt her friend’s heart take flight from her chest. Her friend belonged to the caterer before she got a good look at his face. And then he turned in their direction and found them watching him. A sheen of sweat coated his brow, but he waved with a friendly smile.

Lissa whispered, “Dear baby Jesus and all the animals in the manger, I’m in love.”

Kristiane rolled her eyes so far back into her head that she nearly keeled over backwards off her feet. “That’s the one I was telling you about, the one that tried to barrel through me…”

Lissa, in all her hormone-y wisdom, whispered, “He can lay me out anytime, and I’d only ask for more.”

“You have a problem, Lissa.”

“Yes, I do and he’s right over there. He’s a feast for the eyes, isn’t he? Delicious…”

Kristiane moved away from the woman in heat towards the stage to sing as she’d planned, unbothered by the man who literally knocked her off her feet.

*

Jonathan heard Kristiane and her friend singing on stage together, and decided to let them be, turning a deaf ear to get on with his ‘job.’ He played the part of caterer by setting up a buffet line for the cast and crew for the next day. He counted out the serving spoons and tongs, planned the menu for breakfast and lunch, based on the headcount of 45 left by the stage manager. The first day would have both cast and crew, the cast for a table read through and chair sing through while the crew built up the main set, the hotel room where most of the musical took place.

Chef Pine called in the order for all the food he’d need to be delivered by seven in the morning for the call time at ten for everyone else. Working with a crew would probably suffice, but Jonathan rung up one more for standby, all locals that the Marriott provided. He checked the vendors that he’d hired to verify deliveries and schedules for restocking. It had been several years since Jonathan had been in this position of cook and caterer, save that night for Richard Roper and his crew. He found all the details and intricacies easy to fall back into after a long break.

Even while he worked his cover job, Jonathan planned his next approach on Kristiane Taylor. He wanted to investigate and feel out exactly why she minimized her relationship with Nigel to a mere acquaintance. From an outsider’s perspective, they were closer than that. Kristiane knew of and had met Bobby Jr., and he was the eye of the hurricane that was the Wallace Empire. She hadn’t masked how close she and Nigel were at her closing night at the stage door, on a busy midtown Manhattan Street, near the heart of Time’s Square. He couldn’t justify the change in her.

After glancing through her box of treasures that he’d carried, Jonathan learned a bit more about the Broadway star. Among her collectibles, a well read, thoroughly loved copy of the complete works of Oscar Wilde. He thought that he might try a conversation about the writer to get closer to her, earn her trust, maybe even her friendship. He had little to no knowledge of musicals, so that was a dead end for him…

Unless he got her alone or caught her singing alone, he couldn’t broach the subject. Lissa’s presence only complicated his mission. Overall, bringing the Wallace clan to justice was the end game, using innocents to accomplish that was a necessary evil. Jonathan hoped to use as few as possible. His goal was to be in and out of these people’s lives as quickly as he could without too much collateral damage. Using Kristiane to get to The Accountant felt necessary, and Lissa could remain unscathed. If he had to, he would, but he wanted to avoid it.

“Kristiane tells me,” a sweet female said behind him as he closed up the portable closet that had been left for him, “That you’re the… caterer?” The sing-songy voice broke through his calculating mind while he organized what he could before the food arrived.

He turned towards his company only to find her standing closer than he anticipated. Feigning a warm smile, Jonathan dipped his head politely, much like he did as the night manager of the Nefertiti Hotel seven years ago. “Indeed, I am. Jonathan Pine.”

Lissa sidled up to him a little closer, leaning into him, giving him a bird’s eye view of her cleavage. Her rounded brown eyes were slightly larger than Kristiane’s, her hair darker, but their figure and stature similar. In fact, this woman resembled an animated Disney princess, more than Kristiane did. “Lissa,” she slithered for emphasis, “Lissa Tuggle.”

Jonathan wasn’t immune to the wiles of the opposite sex. He knew the signs of a woman’s interest in him, and Lissa displayed each one he knew. She was a pretty, little thing, certainly someone he’d choose to chat up when she showed interest, but he knew his limitations. After the Roper, Tradepass, and Jed situation, he knew not to mix business with pleasure. (Rather pleasure with business, in this case.) Women were off limits, even if he wasn’t on an assignment for the British Government. He caused too many women indirect harm by getting involved against his better judgment.

But Jonathan still enjoyed the attentions, so he smiled again and offered his hand to shake to the lovely brunette with the walnut shaped eyes. “It’s a pleasure.”

“Oh, I’m sure it could be,” she hinted, roving his body with a suggestive once over. “So… St Cloud went all out, the full nine…”

Jonathan furrowed his brow in confusion when she gestured to the layout he prepared for tomorrow. “I’m—sorry? St Cloud? I—don’t follow.”

“Producer guy. Head honcho. Big boss. The man who signs your contract and hopefully pays you… what you’re… worth.” Another scan of those sinfully seductive eyes. For a Disney Princess lookalike, she didn’t act like one… or suggest like one. Lissa didn’t offer tea and biscuits, but a night cap and a dessert all without leaving the bedroom.

“Oh, I see…” he chuckled to himself, nodding, “St Clair. Nigel St Clair.”

“St Clair. St Cloud.” She waved her hand nonchalantly, “Same difference.”

Lissa wasn’t playing dumb, Jonathan surmised, nor was she that careless. He’d overheard her reciting calculations in her head to Kristiane about prospective attendance figures and ticket sales when her focus was on her conversation. This, though, was a play to chat him, Jonathan the caterer, up. It didn’t matter the content of what she talked about, only that she engaged with him.

But it made one thing ideally clear for the sleeper, undercover MI6 agent cataloging information in his head, Lissa Tuggle didn’t know or care for Nigel St Clair. He couldn’t use her for the mission, should his connection through Kristiane prove a dead end.

“How did you get this job, Jonathan?” she fluttered her eyelashes for him, a perfect combination of flirty, bashful and playful.

He huffed, a short airy humoring snicker as he smoothed his hand over his hair. “My business. Out of London. Nigel St Clair attended a banquet I catered and rang my number.” It was almost true. Nigel was fed (forgive the pun), false information that led to Jonathan as that event’s chef and Angela learned of Nigel’s intention of hiring someone to cater his new foray into theatre production.

“Lucky that you came _all. this. way_. for us.”

“I enjoy my time in New York City. Are you from here? Originally?”

“Close enough,” Lissa lied evenly as she was born and raised in Virginia. She was too enamored with the voice and the look of him to waste time on talking about herself. She preferred the look and sound of him to her ordinary life. “Did you, Jonathan, study your culinary skills in London?”

“Somewhere, thereabouts…” he answered vaguely weaseling past the personal. “This is my first theatre production, working on site.”

“Fascinating. What do you normally cater?” The innuendo didn’t go unnoticed from the ring in her voice, the one that said she would like him to cater to her fancies and desires.

As he opened his mouth to produce another stack of lies to support his cover, music began playing. Pre-recorded booming voices sung, ‘ _Look down, look down, upon your fellow men…’_

Lissa flicked her tongue against her teeth and tsked. “That’s me!” She rushed to her bag to fiddle with the device until it stopped playing. She spoke after recognizing the incoming call ID on the screen. “Devin, babe, what’s up, sweetie?”

Jonathan pointed back to his task of organizing his closet when Lissa spared him a longing glance. He offered discretion for her phone call, but the actress grabbed his wrist before he could turn away entirely.

Listening intently to the caller, Lissa shook her head for him, and then motioned for one moment. “Devin,” she said into the phone, before mouthing ‘roommate’ to Jonathan. “I should be home…” back into the phone, “In a few hours.” She scanned the room for the clock on the wall above the doorway to the dressing rooms. “Oh, you’re there now?” Following a resigned sigh, Lissa shouldered her purse. “Yeah, I’ll come… twenty minutes.”

The friendly and slightly perturbed brunette chucked her phone in her bag after ringing off. “Pity, I have to run, Jonathan. Trouble with the super and the roommate in Queens.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Palming his chest as an excuse to touch him, Lissa winked. “Listen, tell Kristiane I was called away… say Devin and she’ll understand. Tell her sorry for me and I’ll see her…. And you, Jonathan, tomorrow at rehearsal.”

With a swish of the elevator doors, she was gone as quickly as she’d come on to him.

*

The mellow, melancholy strands of melody met him when he stepped on stage. Kristiane sat on the edge of the stage with her feet dangling inot the orchestra pit below, singing softly into the empty audience. She didn’t hear Jonathan’s approach, instead she tuned her ear to the key playing in head, matching pitch from memory.

The mark of any good singer would be to make their audience believe and identify themselves in the words of the song. Music had never been more than a passing element in Jonathan’s life. Naturally, the soldiers on duty in Iraq played The Beach Boys and The Beatles in the barracks, anything upbeat to boost up moral in the life and death situation. He didn’t connect to music on an emotional and spiritual level like so many others did; there was enough noise in his head.

But there was an inflection in Kristiane’s soothing tones that touched him. He couldn’t name the emotion, empathy… maybe, but he felt something when he listened to her sing her quiet song for an audience of herself.

> _“I know it’s wrong_  
>  I know he’s rough  
>  I don’t know what to do  
>  But we’ve been through enough  
>  I know it’s time  
>  And yet I play  
>  Maybe I like it this way.  
>    
>  I see his pain  
>  I hear his cry  
>  He pulls me to the edge  
>  But I don’t ask him why  
>  I understand  
>  And I obey  
>  Maybe I like it this way.  
>    
>  I like the way he laughs  
>  His strange and silent stare  
>  I like the way he moves  
>  The way he’s always there  
>  The way he calls my name  
>  The way he takes control  
>  I like the way this man has stirred my soul”

Listening felt intrusive after she’d stirred that something unidentifiable inside him. His stomach pinged painfully to clear his throat to alert her that she was no longer alone, and she’d possibly revealed a secret part of herself that he overheard. “Kristiane… pardon…”

Her head whipped in his direction, irritated by the disruption. “You—again? Where’s Lissa?” Her eyes shot over his shoulder to look for her friend.

Jonathan cursed inwardly for the tried and true bump into the target by accident approach. He’d annoyed the hell out of her, and she still carried the annoyance with her. His second impression on her wasn’t progressing any better. “I’m so sorry, Kristiane,” he found himself apologizing again. “Lissa was called away.”

He watched her spin on her bum to swing her legs sideway to get to her feet gracefully. Those jeans – bless those jeans.

“Called away? She was helping me!”

Defensively he held his hands up in a ‘don’t kill the messenger’ way. “There was a problem with Devin actually.”

“Devin. That girl was born a train wreck. If her nail polish bubbles, it’s the sign of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.” She took an exasperated breath and pulled her phone from the inside of her bra where she’d tucked it when she began singing.

“If I may,” he ventured slowly and graciously, “I would take Lissa’s place. I could—“

Kristiane landed a cynical look on him, crossing her arms under her breasts again, as he saw her do in her dressing room. She kept that barrier between them. “You want to help me? Why would you do that?”

If he squinted, Jonathan almost saw the chip on her shoulder grow. “I can be hospitable… helpful even,” he jested playfully through gritted teeth. He wanted to withdraw the offer almost immediately. Her doubt about his sincerity and manners got under his skin, the hair on his arms bristled at the near insult.

Kristiane’s fingers hadn’t paused long enough for him to speak and extend a helping hand. Into her mobile, she clipped at the person she called, “Terr. Babe. At the theatre. Will you help me bring my things over, please? … yeah, uh huh, thanks, babe. I owe you a million.” Smiling a fake sweet cover, she looked at Jonathan. “I got it covered. I can’t take you away from your cooking,” she replied as an afterthought, tucking her phone back into her bra. A dig was buried in those words, but he didn’t know why.

The slight he felt was nothing short of rude, almost insulting. She didn’t even thank him for his offer. Why was she so opposed to him? Accidents happened, he reasoned, all the time, but she took his bumping into her personally, so it seemed. In reality, it was deliberate but she couldn’t possibly know that. Bowing his head in a brief nod, he tried again, “If you change your mind, I’ll be in the lobby.” He pointed towards the back of the house, and another staging area to prep for tomorrow.

It was a midway point between the theatre itself where the crew would be working and the ballroom where the cast would be rehearsing. The narrow space though couldn’t allow for the buffet tables and the traffic of hungry people around them for Jonathan to setup there entirely.

“We shouldn’t be long, Terry and me… how much longer will you need?”

Showing her the same politeness he used on outwardly disrespectful hotel guests from his previous life, Jonathan stated amicably, “I can be finished whenever you need me to be. I won’t put you out.”

Kristiane missed or ignored the passively aggressive statement in his gorgeous accent and nodded. And without another word, she turned in the direction of her dressing room to wait for this Terry that Jonathan hadn’t seen yet in his surveillance of her.

Jonathan never quit an assignment, but he wanted to with this diva.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thank you to my two betas, my roommate and story wrangler tenderistheghost and missviolethunter who both put up with more than should from me. A very special thank you to someone no longer around much, this story and inspiration wouldn’t be possible without you!
> 
> A/N 2: The song that Kristiane sings in this chapter is called [Maybe I Like it This Way from Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DDSUCjRZSVlc%26list%3DPLNXSK9RU25shWVIUdSd_9kHEClYF5YGCm%26index%3D12&t=NWFmOGU1NzU3YzkwNTg3N2I0MzlkMzQ3NTcyODQ0NzIwNGFjYmY1YSx0RWhvdGpOWQ%3D%3D). It may look familiar to some of you who read the Covent Garden role play. I included it in the drabble I wrote for that story arc: Music from a Locked Room (I can upload that here if anyone is interested). It fits Kristiane too well to not use it again, and if you decide to follow along with this story, it will make sense.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “CUPCAKE!”

The word only seemed to bounce around the theatre for the next ten minutes.

If Jonathan thought Kristiane’s relationship with Nigel confusing, he was baffled by her relationship with this Terry person. As luck would have it, Jonathan had positioned himself in the lobby with the door to the house open, propped by one of those plastic triangle stoppers. He had a perfect view of Kristiane on stage, waiting for her moving helper to arrive. When he did, in fact, arrive his boisterous and obnoxious personality seemed to fill the entirety of the theatre, through the rafters to crack the ceiling above.

A man dressed in a worn wife beater and ripped jeans appeared on stage where Kristiane stood, singing softly for herself. His chiseled arms squeezed Kristiane so much in an affectionate hug that Jonathan almost worried for her. Well, he would’ve if she’d been a little nicer. But the loud though somewhat melodic voice of her friend calling to her announced his arrival, followed by the huge tackle hug.

Kristiane laughed… until she was breathless and red in the face from the man tackling her. Jonathan from his viewpoint saw that these two had a chemistry, their own language, and their own communication. It was verbal, physical, and psychological but a charming combination complete with gestures, facial expressions and quips. Their exchanges were rapid and too quiet for Jonathan to hear clearly from his spot in the back of the theatre, but he recognized true affection between them.

This relationship appeared genuine, but he wouldn’t let that confuse his mission. Kristiane’s relationship with The Accountant only mattered to him, and this friend, boyfriend, husband, lover, brother, coworker or otherwise wouldn’t get in the way if Jonathan stuck to his plan of getting close to her. However much he didn’t want to after her behavior so far.

“So these are your new digs?” Terry admired the theatre by turning his body towards the house.

Jonathan flattened himself against a dark curtain that was used during performances to block out any distractions and light coming from the lobby when the door opened. He couldn’t be seen, at least not clearly, from the stage. He could keep tabs on Kristiane and eavesdrop on any information from her on The Accountant.

“It’s a big house, hummingbird!” Terry stated with some fanfare wave. “How’re you feeling right now?”

“My biggest house so far,” she admitted, taking his hand. “And I’m nervous! Excited nervous, you know? This one is square on my shoulders.” Her eyes seemed to trace over every seat in the mezzanine, counting the future heads in the seats. “Over 1600 seats, Terr, and I’m leading this cast. I’m petrified.”

“You’re a diva, girlie,” he said wrapping his arms around her and nuzzling her ear. “You got this! How many times have you put yourself out there to get _this_ thing? _This very thing?_ This is what you’ve been striving towards… your name in bigger lights, in bigger shows, for more recognition.”

She pushed at him playfully. “That’s not why I do this, and you know it.”

“Then your heart’s in the right place, and you’ll succeed for you.” His hand came up to hook some of her hair behind her ear and a deeper unspoken back and forth happened between them when he did.

Jonathan from his spot in the back thought that he might see them kiss, as it seemed an intimate, loving moment. It didn’t happen, but it was deafeningly quiet between them after the disruptive entrance.

The spell broke when Terry spoke again. “Where’s the sugar daddy? I’m surprised that he’s not here for this!”

“Nigel!” she stated pointedly for emphasis, and Jonathan strained forward to hear this part of the conversation. “Nigel had a business trip. I wanted him to be here for this. He made all this possible for me, and it feels ungrateful to be moving in without him here. But he got me the keys…”

“Where was he off to this time?”

“He didn’t say, but he got the keys for me to get in today. He would’ve moved me in himself, I know he would, if he didn’t jet off to one country or another.”

“He didn’t throw some money at someone to help you this time?” Was there a hint of jealousy or resentment, maybe a rivalry in his question?

“I didn’t tell him until he left so he wouldn’t do that. That’s not why—“

“—I know, rose petal, I know.” He shook his hands and his head to brush off the seriousness of their discussion. “He booked an impressive theatre!” The man tried for changing the subject, but his tone sounded a little forced, the excitement more for show than of actual emotion.

“He did. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay him for taking such a chance on me,” Kristiane read as sincere about Nigel from Jonathan’s vantage point. He’d witnessed her with Nigel, listened in on a date between them. He had no doubt that she cared for him.

Terry did though. “I know a way,” he crudely hinted.

Kristiane’s hand flew up and slapped him on his upper arm, doing little more than making him laugh at his own entendre. “Terrence!”

“Come on, cookie. You know sugar daddy is in it for a little grain, a little sugar, a little…” He swayed his hips suggestively and Kristiane took chase after him off the stage in the direction of her dressing room.

*

When Jonathan finished prepping for the start of rehearsals and coordinating with the Marriott staff, he went in search of Kristiane. Not only to tell her that he was done for the day, but to attempt another conversation with her. Maybe her mood and attitude had filtered off after all the laughing he’d heard her do with her… boyfriend?

It had been quiet in the theatre for at least an hour when Jonathan found Kristiane in her dressing room. The door was open ajar and she was unpacking a box in front of the mirror, the lights turned on bright, making her glow. Her reflection showed her intent on the contents of her box instead of anything else in the room that looked empty from the mirror. She’d pull out a card, examine it for a few moments, place it aside, and start on something else. She paid homage to each piece of memento or postcard or picture that came from the box.

She was an attractive woman, again if he allowed himself the luxury of those labels. Bowing his head respectfully to play off that he hadn’t been watching her for a few beats, he quietly said, “Knock, knock.”

Kristiane’s quiet pensive mood dropped like a robe to the floor and her eyes rose immediately to the reflection of the door in the mirror. Her eyes locked on his, the caterer in the gap. “Are you finished?” she asked instead of a pleasantry or welcoming greeting. Yet, the words weren’t clipped, more conversational.

Jonathan swallowed his pride and smiled for her, pressing the door open a bit wider. He could take that she was still sore about being bowled into. He could take the responsibility for that, and he did. It wasn’t the best avenue to meet the woman, and she’d continue to remind him of it. “Thank you, yes. The few hours work gave me a decent head start on tomorrow when the food arrives. I don’t know what to expect…” he chuckled lightly, trying to endear himself to her, “This is my first job for a theatre company.”

“We don’t bite, us theatre folk,” she said defensively.

 _But you’ve got claws_ , Jonathan thought to himself as the only revenge he could muster when she was his target for the time being. “Oh, no, I wouldn’t think that. I’m used to working with boring corporate types with more brains than personality.” Not quite a lie when it came to his life as the night manager or when he was mixed up in the Roper situation. The three theatre personalities he’d encountered in one day, Kristiane, Lissa and Terry, were all unique individuals when he couldn’t remember any standout CEO or company president he met during his years serving desk duty at five star hotels.

Kristiane made another defensive move by folding her arms under her breasts, a familiar quirk in her. Or maybe just towards him, as it had made its third appearance that day. “Some of us have both.”

 _As well as attitude…_ The woman clearly wanted little to do with him or chat with him. Maybe giving her some space would lighten the mood she had toward him. “I didn’t want to take up too much more of your time, Kristiane. Unless you needed more help… did your friend leave?” He asked with the best intentions of lending a hand if she needed it, in exchange for being allowed in the theatre with her. Another offer in civility with every intention of making her talk.

“Terry left. I’m done, all my stuff is in now. Just need to unpack, but there’s time for that.” If Kristiane wore traffic signs to be any clearer about how she felt about his offer, but her body language said it all. ‘Local traffic only.’ ‘No outlet.’ ‘Stop.’ ‘Caution, speed bumps ahead.’ The closed off posture, arms crossed in front of her, and her dismissive expression all told him to bugger off. She might be his way into the inner ring of The Accountant but she wasn’t screaming ‘talk to me.’ At least not to him.

Jonathan had made some progress, not good progress, but he’d wear her down. “Pleased to hear it,” he imbued his words with as much charm and friendliness as he could. “Thank you again for allowing me in early with you today. Much obliged.”

The polite British turn of phrase loosened her only a fraction. She nodded. “You can see yourself out?” she pointed absently. It was almost a statement, but her voice lilted just enough to make it a question.

“I know my way out. Until tomorrow, Kristiane,” he said, ducking his head again as he closed the door the notch that he’d opened it.

As if he’d not been there at all.

*

“How’d it go today, Pine?”

“The woman’s insufferable… rude, curt, dismissive, unapproachable…”

Angela made a noise of humor through the phone during the nightly check-in with Jonathan. “Pity.”

Rubbing a hand over his face, he released some of the frustration and pent up aggravation from a few hours ago. Kristiane had gotten under his skin, and he thought he deserved to blow off some steam after keeping his night manager demeanor in the face of her scorn. She showed him her displeasure, while he only showed her manners. She let it all out on him and he felt justified in dumping it back on her! But he didn’t, concentrating on the mission. “I’m right sure she isn’t going to help.”

“Convince her otherwise. That’s why you’re there.”

“She’s impossible!”

“ _Cater_ to her,” Angela snickered, somewhat enjoying his ‘backstage’ talk. She’d seen and heard him unload his contained rage before, during other missions. This was nothing new, and she liked seeing his fuse blow eventually. “Look, you’ve been through far worse, for much longer. Mind, you managed Corkoran while you dethroned him. You can charm the Disney Princess.”

“I’m not certain. She might be the villain of this story.”

“That pretty little thing?”

“She’s a heathen. If she could spit fire, she would. I didn’t walk away unburned, so I’m quite certain she can.”

Angela compiled all the reports for the day from her various agents while soothing this one. “Pine, she’s our only lead in New York so far. Only one step to The Accountant, closer than we’ve ever been before. You’ll have to see this one through.”

“I can approach Nigel on my own. When he returns, I can have a private sit-down with him,” the thought came to him in light of Jonathan’s misgivings about Kristiane. Why had she been so closed off when she seemed so sweet to others? He’d watched her at the stage door of her show, with Nigel, with Terry, with other strangers… and yet, he got the New York City attitude. He was almost convinced that he could do this without involving her at all.

Over the past few months, he watched Nigel slowly unraveling as The Wallace Clan seemed to hole up into themselves. Their security grew tighter, the recruiting stopped and they didn’t make a wave in the crime world. MI6 believed that they were preparing something bigger than the Hammersmith incident.

“We could lose him,” Angela warned in a rush. “We can’t take that risk. Not now. Not after all this time.”

Jonathan was aware of the dangers because Nigel lived off the grid and continue to do his job. Jonathan also knew his ability to talk and convince others of what he believed in. “This is the time to strike. Apply some pressure from this side.”

“We can’t afford to lose him on a slip. The Broadway singer, Jonathan, is the way in.”

*

Conference room B on the second floor had been set up by the Marriott well in advance. Eight long tables were arranged in a large rectangle shape with enough chairs to seat the entire cast, director, stage manager, assistant stage manager, and a few technical designers: lights, sound, props, and costumes. Conference room C, next door, served as the music room, for the start. A semi-grand piano had been moved into the room as well as several rows of chairs and music stands for the cast to use.

Kristiane was the first among the cast to arrive, and Jonathan saw her sneak into the music room thirty minutes before call time to warm up. He’d been laying out the breakfast spread for the cast after the crew had already been fed. He couldn’t come up with a valid excuse to follow her in there to talk. After her less than civil demeanor the day before he wasn’t speeding back to be in her presence again either. Interrupting her warm up wouldn’t win him any points.

He was suddenly reminded of his school days, and reluctantly sitting next to a girl called Nancy who dubbed him ‘Noodle head’ for his thick curls. The teacher made them have recess and lunch together until they learned to get along. Thirty years later, Jonathan was back in the presence of a girl he didn’t like, strong armed by authority to be nice and learn to get along with her.

Aaron, Jonathan’s twenty year old musical theatre wannabe working as one of his catering crew, brought him the table linens for the setup. “Pine,” the tall lanky Columbia University student caught his attention from the door to conference room C. “Karen said five minutes and she’ll need help bringing it here. Do you need help with the burners?”

Together they spread the tan tablecloth out in preparation of the food. Jonathan nodded, pointing where he hid the canisters, “I’ll need you on the crew today, once we get breakfast out for the cast.”

The younger man’s face fell with the directive, but he kept his mouth shut in the presence of his superior.

“What is it?” Jonathan inquired. “Did I kick your dog?”

Bending at the knee, Aaron began loading the burners from under the table. “I would like to be upfront…” he said carefully, not to enrage or question the boss.

“Oh? Why’s that then?”

Aaron loaded six more up onto the table while Jonathan arranged the soon-to-be hot trays over them. “Most of this cast is mega talented, man… I’d auction body parts for half the career that Ray Matias has. I’d do unspeakable things to Kristiane Taylor and Lissa Tuggle.”

“Each or at the same time?”

“Yes!”

“Is that so?” Jonathan chuckled inwardly, relieved that the kid felt relaxed enough to be himself around him. He always felt tasks ran better when the crew felt open to be themselves. Jonathan hadn’t yet met Ray Matias, the male lead, but he knew Kristiane and Lissa. Having this young enthusiast of the Broadway stage on his team could be helpful. “Have you met any of them?”

“Not officially, but I’d carve out my own right eye with this,” he shook a serving fork with two prongs to punctuate his point, “To ask Kristiane for a date.”

Jonathan kept a straight face, veering his reaction to disinterest more than shocked distaste. “Not in front of the cast.” He took the potential weapon from the younger man, trading it for the label cards. “Put those out please, would you?”

Aaron placed the cards out at each station down the line, the sides before the mains. “She’s hot and can sing the shit outta anything you put in front of her,” he enthused forgetting that Jonathan was his supervisor for the next six weeks.

The older gentleman swung around and tapped Aaron on the shoulder. “I don’t mind the bad language, but shelve it for the first week. Wait for them to curse first, yeah?”

Aaron nodded, embarrassed, and face to the floor, mumbled an apology.

Jonathan found another chuckle in the back of his throat. “Listen here, we need the cereal and pastry table just there,” he pointed off to the side, “Make it attractive, don’t forget about presentation.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll handle the cast this week and we’ll see if we can’t get you that date next week without losing any blood to get it.”

Aaron saluted onto his new task.

Jonathan had to be in front this week, since Nigel was due back any minute and he had to earn the lead’s trust. Tracking The Accountant and all his doings and dealings when he returned became priority number one followed by befriending Kristiane. Before making his way to the music room to try again with the woman who tested his patience, Jonathan sent a text to Angela: ‘ _ETA on The Accountant?_ ’

‘ _Development. Hold tight_ ’ It was her only message for the next few hours. The curt response put him edge, that familiar tingle of anticipation, to be ready, to be aware of all the small details.

As much as Jonathan prepared for the beginning of the rehearsals for Pretty Woman, nothing met his expectations of how the day would go. The cast all presented themselves as friendly enough, the crew much the same though less vocal in their acceptance. Each of Jonathan’s catering staff turned out to be the best of the best and he had no complaint. He remained visible to the cast while they did their table read and book sing through.

Nigel was a no show, and from the reaction of the director and stage manager, it was unexpected.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't thank you all enough for the wonderful comments! They've inspired me so much. The next chapter should be up this week, it's finished... I only got the push to go over it a few more times. 
> 
> You all are amazing for sharing this journey with me. It's a labor of love, and any company that I have with me feels incredible. So thank you all, for reading.

The moment that Jonathan pocketed his mobile phone for the seventh time since Angela’s cryptic message five hours ago, he was descended upon by an enthusiastic, wide-eyed beauty with raspberry colored lips. Lissa coyly touched his arm to get his attention and purred a hello, her lashes lowered in an invitation of something far more intimate and less formal.

“Hello, Jonathan.” Her fingers crawled up his arm just to touch him.

“Uh, Pleasure… uh…” Jonathan cleared his throat to drag his gaze from her cleavage. “Pleasure to see you again, Ms. Tuggle.” His agent’s brain switched gears from his case to cooking for a band of misfit actors. “Is everything sorted with your roommate then?”

Lissa’s pouty painted lips pouted a bit more at the proper greeting from the man she was certain she wanted to be entirely improper with. She ignored his question about Devon, focusing on her name instead. “My name is Lissa, Jonathan. Lissa… you must call me…”

“Lissa. Right. Very well, Lissa,” turning on the hospitality smile, or something more genuine. Lowering his voice conspiratorially to her, he whispered, “Shouldn’t you be in the music room?” He had been headed back in that direction when he’d stopped to check his phone. Lunch service for the backstage crew finished and his team were arranging for the cast lunch in fifteen minutes when they broke.

“Not until later, after lunch. I’m not in all the scenes like Kristiane. I get some down time, backstage.” Lissa wasn’t subtle and she didn’t have to be. She liked men and they liked her, responded to her, including Jonathan who moved in closer. “Down time is my time, to do… anything I want.” Her eyes crawled up his body from the apron tied around his waist to his eyes.

Humoring this escapade, Jonathan snapped back with a flirtatious response. “One of these days you’ll have to show me… what you do. But, I’m afraid I’m up now,” he tipped his head to his crew fastidiously making do without him, a fact Lissa knew very little about. “My turn in the spotlight.”

Her lips began to pull down in a frown, but then another thought brought them back. “You should come out with us tonight, Jonathan.”

“That’s kind of you to offer.”

She licked her lips, wishing he was on them. “I’m… of the kind sort and you are part of the crew. Everyone’s going.”

Before he bowed out politely, he asked, “Who’s everyone?” Normally he wouldn’t consider unless his mark was positively going to be there.

Lissa began rattling off names of the cast members, all familiar but he couldn’t match faces with names since the introductions that morning. The first name she uttered was precisely the one he wanted to hear: Kristiane.

Before he agreed outright, he needed to be sure of Nigel’s whereabouts and Angela’s new development in the case.

“Can I think on it and get back to you?”

“I’d like that very much,” her body language told him that she’d like him very much too. Lissa sashayed away and Jonathan counted each sway of her hips. He couldn’t ignore that he was intrigued by the confident and sexually available woman, but he had a job to do. He forced his focus off the woman ready to end the months’ long dry spell without a partner at his command of ‘Now.’

Turning back to his crew of six, he was pleased to find that they’d done a fine presentation for the cast’s lunch layout. He took the three minutes before the cast flooded out in search of food to check in with his other job. Taking cover behind one of the impressive pillars that supported the skyscraper building, Jonathan hit speed dial for Angela on his phone.

The call connected hurriedly, a rustled fumbling sounded in his ear. Then he heard Angela bellow out an order in the background, “Get me the coordinates!!” She wasn’t the person to answer the call, it was Singhal, sounding not the least bit tickled. “Jonathan Pine.”

The computer wizard had aspirations of working in the field, out from behind a desk, minus the Bluetooth headset or mobile phone attached to his ear, but he couldn’t get Angela to unshackle him from the glorified paper shuffler position. He had the heart of a lion, but he came off as a sheep. Pine always wondered though if he might be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“Tell me what I need to know,” Jonathan clipped back in agent mode.

“Something’s happened—happened with the Accountant.”

“I surmised that much. I need more to go on.”

The noisy background of the London office drowned out Singhal’s mouse-clicking to open to the correct screen. “He got held up in security, something was registered on his passport and he got flagged on the no fly list.”

“That was too quick! He flew out four days ago!”

“It was a confusion with names. Angela spent last night and this morning sorting it with the FBI,” Singhal rubbed his temple in aggrevation.

“Dear God,” Jonathan swallowed. “Is that Wallace pullin’ strings?”

“We think so,” the desk clerk sipped at his coffee, while Angela continued on another line, talking as loud as her lungs could stand. “Senior might be tightening the leads on those strings, especially on his highest rankers.”

“That doesn’t bode well,” Jonathan echoed the thoughts of the other man. Their entire investigation hinged on business as usual, in order to catch them in the act. The money had to circulate, it was their trace. “Where is Senior? Can we quiet him?”

“Steadman. He returned to London from the weekend in the Dominican Republic. He’s on radio silence for the time being, trying to pick up a beat on Senior.”

“And we know where Bobby Jr. is,” Jonathan assumed that another agent was tailing him still. “Where’s the Accountant now? Stateside?” He scowled at his watch. Rehearsal ended at five in the afternoon, the hour hand swinging around past four hours left.

Singhal toggled through one of the eleven windows he had open, monitoring each finger of the complicated web of the analyses. One specifically opened for tracking the flight path from the Dominican Republic to Newark International Airport. “Flight is scheduled to land in Newark within the hour.”

If everything went to plan, Nigel would arrive in midtown Manhattan in two hours. “Checked baggage?”

“Negative, carry-on only.”

“Hired car or taxi cab?”

“He’ll cab it since he missed his original flight yesterday.”

The doors opposite Jonathan, on the other side of the vast expanse of the Marriott Marquis hotel, banged open and several people dripped out. The cast members filed out in pairs and triplets with one destination. Jonathan cursed under his breath. In a clenched jaw whispered directive to Singhal across the pond, “See that the Accountant doesn’t meet any resistance at customs or security when he lands.”

Before Singhal could assure the agent that Angela was on it or that she’d pulled half a dozen magic tricks to clear him the first time, the long distance call terminated with a click.

Stepping back into the affable, hospitable caterer, Jonathan circled up to the table as Ray Matias greeted him and his group of six. The leading man, who had muscles enough for three men, wasn’t short in personality, confidence or volume either. “Hola! You’re all too attractive to serve us! Hey, Chelsea,” he capped the director around her shoulders, “Might there be room in the cast for this bunch?”

Jonathan noticed that Aaron just about catapulted the steaming hot dishes to join the cast. As congenial leader of his band of theatre students turned line servers, Jonathan argued, “Each one would jump at the chance to work with you.”

“Actors? All of you?”

Jonathan’s team all enthusiastically and eagerly nodded, hanging on Ray’s sparkling smile and elegant accent with every word.

“I’d like to sing with each of you while we’re working together,” and again, that earned him another full set of ‘Oh My God’ and ‘Yes, sir’ and maybe a swoon from Natalie at the end of the line.

In a few words and his appreciative welcome, Ray secured himself a place as favorite cast member among the server group. In doing so, he also secured himself a fresh meal and some preferential treatment.

Awkward Chelsea, who never felt overly affectionate for anyone, coworkers or otherwise, mutely acknowledged each one with an appraising look and a study of their name badges. She carried some authority as director of the show, and with the producer’s noticeable absence, she ran the entire production. She smiled and made eye contact with each one of them, learning their names for herself. She made it a point to learn everyone’s name while on a new show, because people mattered to her, even if she came off cold.

“Thank you for being here,” Chelsea said in a monotone, though not unfriendly way, only reserved. She left the cast to shine brighter without drawing attention, and that endeared her to the company. By watching, she highlighted their strengths and put them in the spotlight.

The line moved quickly after that, and Jonathan noticed one person had missed queueing for food. His charge, his assignment, his case. Kristiane didn’t make it to lunch and once everyone had been through, he set off to find her. She wasn’t hard to find, since she like the rest of the cast stuck to the second floor where the theatre and rehearsal rooms were. The open area of the hotel floor allowed for the cast to congregate and stay close to the rehearsal rooms.

Kristiane sat on the carpeted floor with her back supported by the pillar he’d used to hide behind for his phone call with Angela and Singhal. Lissa and two other chorus girls were enjoying the menu Jonathan prepared, Chicken Marsala, while chatting with Kristiane who sipped at her cucumber lemon water.

“How’s the chicken, ladies?”

In unison, all four women looked up and bobbed their head, offering their compliments to the chef. They congratulated him on a meal done well, all except one.

“Are you not hungry, Ms. Taylor?”

“I’m okay, thanks for asking.” The temperature of her tone wasn’t quite icy, but he wouldn’t call it warm either.

He noted an air of finality in her voice though, another dismissive statement to brush him off. For reason of vanity, Jonathan took her refusal of his food personally. He didn’t usually fall prey to vanity, as in never before, or take offense to someone not caring for his service or his food. But this had been another opportunity to get to know her, as he’d been ordered to do, and talk to her.

Nevertheless, he moved on and mingled with the rest of the cast, to inquire as to how they were enjoying the food. The resounding compliments trickled back to him, a little at a time. Several people asked where he’d studied, while others asked about future menus, while others still wanted the recipe. Overall he was pleased by the reception, except from the one he needed to open the door a bit, the one he needed to chat up.

As he stalked back in the direction of the theatre to start clearing up and release his crew for the day, Kristiane strolled back from the bathroom. The two intersected in the middle, and without thinking, he asked her about lunch, or her aversion to it. “Not a fan of Chicken Marsala, Ms. Taylor?”

Fiddling with the keychain on her bag, the one Jonathan saw Nigel give her, she spared him a minute. “As a matter of fact, I am, very much. There’s very little I won’t eat.”

That surprised him for reasons he couldn’t identify and bothered him for reasons he could. “And… yet…” he let the words hang there. Why did he care so much about one out of nearly fifty people? He was hired for this service and he provided it. But her skipping out on feeding her robbed him of a satisfactory service where everyone left happy.

“I don’t…” she began to explain but her ego stopped her. She didn’t want to appear ungrateful or eccentric for her idiosyncrasies, so instead she took the defensive. She attempted levity and vagueness, “A woman has her reasons.”

“I’m at your service,” he bowed his head forward, dropping his eyes, and folding his hands behind, “If there’s anything I can do to… make your rehearsal process more… delicious?” Even in his servitude, he sounded like he was hitting on her. Trying to charm her when he wanted to leave her well enough alone killed his sincerity, but he had orders.

She cracked a smile, but there was little humor or acceptance in it. Only something she did with her mouth. “Look, Mr. Pine, I’m sure your orders are quite clear, to serve everyone in the company. But I can see to myself. Thanks.”

Jonathan almost did a double take. Was she confessing that she knew Nigel St. Clair more than she’d ‘met’ him? Ultimately, his orders came from Nigel, and by extension, Jonathan had to serve Kristiane as part of that. Or had his cover as a chef for a theatre company been blown? It wasn’t possible either way, but her statement held something deeper within it. It was darker, shady… “Secrets, Ms. Taylor? Why won’t you say?” He couldn’t pinpoint what possessed him to say that, but there was something that he needed to poke at.

“Saving face… not as scandalous as secrets though. My life isn’t that exciting.”

“But your secrets are safe with me.”

Then her familiar stance came back with a vengeance, she folded her arms under her breasts defensively. “You’re gonna force me to say, aren’t you? Can I plead the fifth?”

“If I were an American and knew what that meant,” he knew very well what it meant, but he somewhat enjoyed taking the piss while he could, “I’ll take it personally that you chose not to eat my food.”

“I’m more comfortable with that.” She began to walk away, to return to her friends, to revel in the free time before going back to deconstructing a script to put it back together again.

Jonathan took her hand, stopped her from fleeing. The very act of it surprised both of them, but it did stop her from leaving. “Let me make you something, anything you want. Name it.”

Her head shook from side to side, and her hand splayed over her abdomen. “I couldn’t possibly… my stomach is all in knots right now.”

Jonathan didn’t ask why because he knew she wouldn’t tell him. She dodged each question he lobbed at her. There was more to her avoidance, more to her attitude towards him, as she’d yet to warm to him even the slightest. “Then you’ll eat tomorrow?”

“Probably not. Really, Mr. Pine, I can see to myself. They gave me a degree in silverware just last week… mom and dad were very proud,” she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “Graduated with top honors. They might trust me with glasses next, it’s all so exciting.” She mimed a giddy gesture of flapping her hands.

“I surrender, Ms. Taylor.” He held his hands up in defeat. “I won’t show you to my evil lair and try to poison you.”

“And so you admit it? Do you work for my understudy?”

“Almost entirely independent. They’ll cut the umbilical cord next week.”

As she resumed her walk away from him, she threw back over her shoulder, “It’s not polite to detain a lady… or steal her jokes.”

“Duly noted, Ms. Taylor.”

Jonathan sent his crew off to study or practice when the cast went back into rehearsal. Their work was done for the day. He’d remain on in case anyone got hungry for a snack or needed a top up on their drink. The afternoon dipped into an ennui with the crew back at work, measuring dimensions and the cast back on book, reading lines. The first day of a production could be quiet with everyone shyly getting to know one another and familiarizing themselves with the space.

With his responsibilities tended to, Jonathan split his attention to tracking The Accountant. The flight from the Dominican Republic landed in New Jersey around three in the afternoon. The traffic through the Lincoln Tunnel seemed to be at a steady crawl, only a thirty minute delay, typical for city traffic, but it would only get more congested as the hours grew later. Nigel would be lucky to arrive by the end of rehearsal.

At half past four, Jonathan stood outside the rehearsal room, watching the time tick away on his phone. From his periphery, some movement caught his eye from the escalator from the first floor. Judging the distorted, jerky walk, his hair stood on end in battle readiness of an incoming danger. But when he turned, and even though he’d been expecting his arrival, he saw Nigel St. Clair tottering towards the rehearsal room, wincing with each step on his right leg.

Nigel had impeccable taste in clothing and dressed himself in the best Italian fashion that money could buy. But today, he looked a right mess. His wrinkled shirt looked soaked through with sweat and smudgy dirt stains, some of the buttons undone and his tie unknotted. One leg of his trousers had been torn in a jagged line from the knee down to the cuff. His hair was ruffled on top whereas his shoes were scuffed on the bottom. He carried his briefcase with him, but not with the care and arrogance that he usually wore.

Jonathan watched his approach, and Nigel either didn’t see him or acknowledge that there was another human in his presence. The weary traveler tripped over his own feet, glancing behind him as if he feared another person would catch him up. The seemingly put together man of last week was merely a shadow of the man scrambling to his feet.

Instead of helping as was his baser instinct to do, Jonathan faded into the background to continue to watch from behind another white pillar. The Accountant made a beeline for the rehearsal room where the cast was, instead of taking a few minutes to clean himself up on the restroom. He flung the door open to Conference Room B and fell to his knees in the doorway, muttering to himself.

Inside the room, a collective gasp rung out from the cast. Jonathan saw Kristiane at the head of the table, looking like a ghost about to be sick on the lunch he didn’t feed her. She sat perfectly still while the men of the company jumped to their feet to help Nigel. Ray was the first at his shoulder, hoisting the fallen man back to his feet. His jovial voice ringing out through the space, “I’ve got ya, man. Steady on your feet there. You got this…” The stage manager was the next at his other shoulder, taking up the contents of the spilled briefcase.

Thinking fast on his feet, Jonathan rushed to his supply closet in the lobby of the theatre to fetch a drink. He ran back and pushed in through the doors as the other men were wrestling Nigel into a chair, the man swearing up, down and sideways that he was fine. Jonathan spared another look at Kristiane as he opened the can of soda on the table in front of the Accountant.

“How did you know?” Ray asked him.

“I saw him stumble… on the way in. I couldn’t get to him in time to assist, so I went for a drink instead.”

The plausible explanation convinced everyone in the room that Jonathan only rushed to the aid of the ailing man. Kristiane hadn’t looked up during the entire ordeal, instead stared into the open script in front of her on the table. She trembled in her seat, her body tense and rigid from the unexpected and shocking entrance of her friend/lover/boyfriend/husband… whatever Nigel meant to her. And yet she hadn’t moved to see to him or tend to him, or even ask why he was in the state he was in.

She couldn’t hide or pretend that this didn’t affect her and move her, and yet she sat as though she were trying to do just that. Eyes trained down, avoiding the small upheaval in rehearsal with the disruptive arrival of their absentee producer.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dramatic entrance of one executive producer effectively killed of the rest of the script read through for the day. Actors had wives, husbands and families to return to, and overtime on the first day would set a poor precedent for the rest of the run. All of them were propelled into action though, at the sight of Nigel. Each and every actor and actress wanted to lend a hand, generally do something, for their boss, but not only because of his position, but because they were a family now.

When a group of actors and performers were brought together to present a finished product to an even bigger audience, they form a bond. Each person serves a purpose and no one person became more important than the next. A chain can only be as strong as its weakest link, and the success of their bond at the beginning would only carry through for the rehearsal period, and beyond, into performances.

One for all and all for one. In that conference room on the second floor of the Marriott Marquis, they all became a unified front. Chelsea, collected and cool, sat at Nigel’s left offering to call someone or track down a doctor. Ray, in his booming voice, pleasantly ordered people around, presented in his brilliant smile so they didn’t notice that he told them what to do. He had several asking to be told what to do to help.

Jonathan stationed himself at Nigel’s right, where the leg of his trousers had been torn. Depending on how Nigel moved and the fabric gaped open, Jonathan could see red, blood red. The man was hurt, but Jonathan couldn’t get a good look without causing more stir and more panic.

Ray called out to the dance captain of the production, “Denise, honey, would you mind donating one of your towels to the cause?”

Denise dove for her bag, produced a white bath towel and handed it to Ray, hovering by his shoulder for something more to do.

“Thanks, honey,” he winked as he folded the towel around Nigel’s neck, “You look pretty, Denise. Longer bangs, right?”

For twenty seconds, Ray made Denise feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. It was his ease within himself that radiated outward, sincere delivery and earnestness that earned points with men and women equally.

As the bustle began to die down, the stage manager, at Chelsea’s direction, allowed actors to leave one by one. However they didn’t make their exits without checking with Ray or shaking Nigel’s hand, wishing him well as they left. Nigel hid that he was in pain, Jonathan saw the effort in the clench of the man’s jaw and hands. To save as much face as he possibly could, Nigel silenced how uncomfortable he was in that room.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jonathan had been watching Kristiane’s reaction to the whole affair. He couldn’t ration in his head why she’d tensed up and why it took her several minutes before she too flew to Nigel’s aid. If Jonathan wasn’t mistaken, she wiped a tear from her face before she got to her feet. Maybe… she did have a heart under that independent, strong female vibe that she presented, that could ‘see to’ herself.

While everyone else was distracted by tidying the room or caring for Nigel, Jonathan caught Ray’s attention. Quietly he informed the charismatic actor of the problem, “Mr. St. Clair is injured.” He had Ray follow his eyes to tell him where.

“How serious?”

“I’m unsure until I get a look at it. Can you clear the room? I can dress it or determine if he needs medical attention.”

Ray covered his surprise at the chef nicely with a blink and a tip of his head, addressing some of the actors that were talking with the patient. At the end of the queue, Kristiane lingered behind them, respecting their time with him, so she could get hers.

Jonathan subtly excused himself from the room to raid the service closet tucked away in the corner of the floor, a less trafficked area beside a men’s and a women’s bathroom, separated by an antiquated pay phone and a house phone. He searched and found a functional first aid kit. He pilfered the closet for a few hand towels for washing the wound. He took a small detour to his personal hotel room to get a change of clothes for Nigel. He discreetly tucked all his supplies under his arm and returned to the almost deserted conference room.

Nigel repeated for the twelfth time, “I’m so sorry that I missed the rehearsal.” This he said to Mitch, Lisa, and Audrey, all chorus members as Jonathan slipped into the chair next to Nigel. “It was—don’t worry on this,” he slapped the knee of his injured leg, the calm English gentleman in control of all his faculties. “Just a clumsy old man that missed his footing on the tarmac stairs.”

The trio of dancers casually laughed it off with him, insisting that it was bad luck, a trick of vertigo, or exhaustion from traveling. When one of the girls asked about the details of Nigel’s journey, he was as quick and as truthful as Jonathan had been. Almost or vague truths. From the moue of disapproval gracing Kristiane’s lips, she was unhappy about the turn the afternoon had taken.

The last of the stragglers made their way for the escalator, leaving Jonathan, Ray, Kristiane and Chelsea with Nigel. Kristiane stepped forward to bid Nigel well, uncomfortably and awkwardly. She viewed both Jonathan and Ray with a wariness, unsure why they were there. Jonathan avoided her gaze submissively, counting the number of water bottles that Ray had asked someone to bring in for Nigel, presumably to drink. Jonathan knew better.

“Mr. St. Clair,” Kristiane greeted with a tremulous tremor in her voice. “I’m so sorry… that you were delayed…” She stole a glance towards Ray and then Chelsea, resembling a child in school expecting a lecture for a wrongdoing.

“Ms. Taylor,” he said with as much distance he could muster. “Your concern—thank you.”

Her hand lingered in his that moment longer than entirely necessary, and Jonathan witnessed for a second time that desperate longing, and it wasn’t strictly from Nigel this time. Jonathan couldn’t figure why they pretended to be purely professional acquaintances when their relationship went so much deeper.

“We missed you today.” Kristiane fiddled with the keychain on her bag and glanced at the exit. She communicated without words with Terry, Jonathan had seen that for himself and he wondered if her friendship with Nigel was similar.

Nigel nodded once, keeping his eyes locked with hers. “I very much want to hear you sing the score. I apologize for missing the opportunity this morning. Another time, soon, I hope.”

“I’m… glad… that you made it back from your trip.” Another indication towards the door with her eyes, then back to Nigel, and then Kristiane exited through that very door.

“Chelsea, my heart, shall we meet early tomorrow?” Nigel touched the back of her hand twice before landing on it affectionately. “You can catch me up on what I missed out on today, yes?”

“Can’t we get you a doctor? Maybe the Marriott has one on staff.” The soft practical voice of reason was the head and the heart of Nigel’s production. He had known Chelsea for many years and she netted the best of the best in the productions she led in the past. She would, without a doubt, get the right spotlight on Kristiane and get her the accolades she deserved.

“Ray has agreed to fetch some of my belongings and I booked a room here for the night. Come morning, I’ll be right as rain.”

Chelsea hesitated, didn’t want to relent after seeing the state of Nigel when he fell through the door and crashed rehearsal.

Ray smooth-talked Chelsea until she too agreed to leave at last. “Jonathan is here to cook Nigel a hearty meal to get him back on his feet. I’m going to take charge of his personal effects. Go on home, beautiful. All’s well.” He led her to the door and opened it for her.

For a moment, Jonathan and Nigel were alone. Nigel spoke first, “You’re Jonathan Pine.” He extended his hand to shake after rubbing his palm against the material of his trousers.

Jonathan accepted his hand, shaking it heartedly. “At your service, sir. Thank you for the opportunity to work in New York.”

Nigel’s face crumbled into a grimace of agony when the door closed behind Chelsea. Testosterone be damned, the wound on his leg stung like a bitch, but he kept it from everyone, except Ray and Jonathan. Ray rushed back, pulling a miniature bottle of whiskey from his breast pocket for the pain.

“Bottom’s up, sir. This should take the edge off.”

Jonathan knelt beside him to peruse the damage done to Nigel’s leg. As he separated the flaps of fabric, he remarked, “How did you walk on this at all?”

“Not well,” Nigel croaked after downing the whiskey, wincing at the liquid burning the back of his throat.

Ray peered over. “How bad is it? Stitches?”

The jagged tear through flesh oozed blood, trails of blood crawled and coated the skin. It soaked in the fancy expensive argyle sock at Nigel’s ankle. Dirt and grime marred the red into a deep crimson. Jonathan examined the length of the gash on Nigel’s leg with a close eye. It began just below the knee joint and cut through skin in fierce angry zig-zags down to where his leg tapered down to his ankle.

Nigel grunted against the pulsing pain and swallowed another whiskey supplied by Ray. Sweat broke out along Nigel’s brow again, anticipating Jonathan’s true reaction.

“This wound didn’t come from any staircase or stumble on the airport tarmac.” Jonathan kept suspicion and accusation from his statement. Based on visual, it was a scrape sustained from running against something sharp. The laceration wasn’t dug into muscle or deep enough for stitches.

Jonathan opened a plastic water bottle and poured the contents over the seeping would to begin cleaning it.

Ray, in his elegant way, leaned against the table, his right leg crossed over his left in a relaxed pose. “I’m not in the habit of interrogating anyone, so I won’t start now. But I feel the need to remind you that whatever trouble you’re into isn’t worth your life. It’s not my place, obviously, and I’m well aware of that. Sometimes when evil comes to call, it bears repeating – whatever you’re into isn’t worth your life. And that’s all I’ll say. What happens here, stays here. Like Vegas.”

While Ray danced around his monologue, Jonathan watched both men closely, his hands moving to clean and dress the wound. Ray remained as his laid back, charming self, brimmed with a contagious charisma, while Nigel, the reserved business Englishman tried to stifle the excruciating pain and the embarrassment of losing some of his dignity in front of so many. He tried to restrain any movement or twitch away while Jonathan hydrated and flushed the damaged skin.

Meticulously Jonathan dabbed at the mangled skin with antibiotic ointment and tightly dressed it in enough gauze to make a mummy envious. With each layer, Nigel gained some of his self-respect back. After the quiet minutes of reflective silence between the three men, Jonathan got to his feet and slid the clothes he’d brought in front of Nigel. “I brought these down for you if you want to bin the ruined kit. Brand new, never worn, a celebratory gift for this job.”

Nigel accepted the offering, “I’m in your debt. I will repay your kindness.” He grasped the neatly folded bundle between his palms and thanked Jonathan again.

“That’s not necessary. I do enjoy helping when and where I can.” Jonathan tasted the lie, and it had a bitter aftertaste to it. He did enjoy helping but not the man he was entrapping in a scheme to see that he stop dealing in the dastardly plotting of the Wallace Clan. Nigel St. Clair, beyond the pristine clothes and impeccable manners, was as dirty as the rest of the crime family. He was in the core of it.

“You’ll need antibiotics, and keep the leg elevated whenever possible,” Jonathan instructed. “The bandage will need to be changed at least once daily. Wrap tightly.”

“I’ll put in a call to my personal physician and he’ll send a prescription and supplies over. How do you know first aid?”

Jonathan saw far worse, and attended to fatal wounds during his two tours in Iraq, but to avoid suspicion he lied again. “I took several courses when I became a chef. Too many kitchen accidents can end in tragedy.”

Nigel offered his hand to shake once more, grateful for Jonathan’s makeshift first aid assistance, “Thank you again.”

Jonathan found nothing particularly heinous or vile about the man now that he’d met him.

Could Nigel St. Clair be the next Richard Roper?

 

 

The lobby was silent when Kristiane left the conference room. She felt the strain of the past eight hours, waiting for Nigel to arrive. Her ears rung with rush of her blood pressure. At least he wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere, but she’d also never seen him in such a state of disarray, not in the ten years that she knew him. When she was sure the coast was clear, she snuck into the men’s bathroom to wait for her friend.

Most of the cast split to meet up again at a bar a few blocks from the theatre district that many Broadway performers frequented, Marlowe’s. Kristiane agreed to go before she knew the state of Nigel. She couldn’t bring herself to laugh and talk among so many of her friends with one of her closest was suffering. Nervously she checked the stalls of the restroom for feet and then splashed cool water against her neck to cool her anxiety. She believed that Nigel had read her nonverbal cues to meet away from remaining people around. She needed to talk to him, to make sure he was okay and find out what happened that day.

Nigel read her correctly and asked both Jonathan and Ray, who agreed to assist him up to check in and to his room, to give him a few minutes to change, and he limped his way to the men’s room.

Kristiane threw herself into his arms when the door echoed closed in the tiled room. The velocity of her tackle knocked the air out of his lungs, but it was precisely what he needed. She held him so tight that his back crackled, releasing some of the stress knots that had formed since the episode with security at his departing airport last night. Nigel couldn’t find it in him to tell her to release her grip, he needed the tactile feel of her.

“I was worried sick for you.”

Nigel buried his face into the massive mane of her hair and breathed in deeply, reveling in the honeysuckle smell of her, the tender softness of her curves against him. Instantly he was better after the hellish weekend and the equally hellish journey back to New York City. “God, Kristiane,” he exhaled a sigh, some of his stress going with it. “My little bird.”

They stayed locked in that embrace until she pulled away, breaking the hug. She slapped his shoulder in the madness of relief, of not knowing where to look for him if he had gone missing, for making her worry. “You had me worried sick! You were supposed to be here!”

“Kristiane!”

“I watched that damn door all day, Nigel. All fucking day! You were supposed to be here,” Kristiane’s voice increased in volume when her hands landed on her hips. She didn’t mean to yell at him, she honestly didn’t. But she felt raw after worrying all day and she couldn’t let it out until then, with him. Her hidden turmoil over Nigel’s missing person act and her need to vent and her need for him came out as anger instead of relief. Frustration and fury, then assuagement and ease. “I waited and I watched! You were supposed to be here… with me!”

Quietly, Nigel asked, “Must we, Kristiane? Must we go for the dramatics? So soon?” He angled past her, hoping she’d be his reprieve for longer than a minute, but she twisted it as a slight on her. He was tired. In the light of his weekend away, he longed only to lay eyes on her again. He wasn’t altogether surprised by her reaction either.

Haughtily, she shrieked, “I was worried about you!”

Nigel began unbuttoning the shirt he’d worn for roughly 36 hours, but felt like 96. “I don’t need this now. My head is about split open from the pain, luv.”

Kristiane stared, shocked that he was so calm in the face of her concern and why she was upset by his absence. “Where were you? You didn’t call or text me to let me know you were going to be late. You always call! I thought something happened to you!” More anger, more fury. She hated the sound of her own voice. His nonplussed attitude when she thought she might crack under the strain infuriated her all the more. “You always call me, why didn’t call?!”

“I owe you nothing, little bird,” he reminded her clearly, peeling the filthy shirt from his body, “You’ve made that crystalline clear, have you not?”

The Britishness of it made her blood surge with indignation. She gasped at the pointed look he coupled with the question. Their relationship had been entirely her call, what she allowed, what she accepted from him. But she would never agree to his question, _that question_. “Resentment? Now? Really? You’re gonna hold that against me… now? Truly? I was clear with you from day one—no, I’m not rehashing that… now! Not when I’m showing concern—“ Her voice turned despondent, “We were doing this together, Nig!”

Nigel pulled his soiled undershirt off over his head and trashed it with his button down. “Concern would be asking about my health, my flight, my commute… without raising your voice to me.” Marking his point and closing the discussion, at least for him, he donned Pine’s black Henley.

“I don’t need lessons from you, Nigel! You had me in knots all day because you didn’t call. You promised to be here and you didn’t tell me when you were delayed! Nigel, I care for you, you know that! And this isn’t like you! Your behavior today isn’t like you!!” Hysteria and panic were slow to release their hold on Kristiane, and she was blinded by his unaffected responses.

Ignoring shame or vanity, Nigel removed his torn, dirty trousers to reveal the bandage on his leg. They’d each seen each other in various stages of undress since they met, changing his trousers in front of her didn’t bother either of them. “For once, Kristiane, it’s not about you.” There he stood in the middle of a public (though concealed) bathroom in a Henley, white boxer shorts and a bandage around his lower leg.

The evidence of such a large injury did bother her a great deal. Kristiane’s heart plummeted to the floor for her righteous entitlement and she felt like an ass. Her knots and her checking her phone incessantly meant little when Nigel was physically hurt. “What the hell happened to you?” Even that didn’t come out as she’d wanted it to. “What happens to you out… there?”

It was Nigel’s turn to feel the part of a donkey. He only wanted to get Kristiane to stop yelling at him, but he was in no way prepared to tell her what happened to him. Or why.

“You know what hurts more than this, Kristiane?” he challenged cruelly, “That you pretend that you don’t care for me as much as you claim to when we’re in private… like this.”

 

 

Furious and on edge, Kristiane stormed out of the bathroom, leaving Nigel in there. Forgetting herself and that she was where she shouldn’t have been and with someone she shouldn’t know, she barged out, bag over her shoulder. She wanted to run, she wanted to cry, she wanted to yell. But most of all, she wanted peace.

Her first day of rehearsals were always special, but the memory of this one wasn’t ideal. She’d been anxious for Nigel’s appearance, for him to be there as she began on becoming Vivian. Pretty Woman, the new musical, was the project that Kristiane and Nigel dreamed of coming along, something new for her to create and something to show her off. She was known in and around the Broadway community, but Nigel wanted her to be the new go-to, like Sutton Foster and Audra McDonald. Kristiane possessed the voice, the talent, the acting chops, the dance moves and the ambition for it. The only thing she needed was the break.

Bonnie and Clyde had almost been the break, _almost_. Though critically acclaimed and loved by nearly anyone that had been lucky enough to hear it or see it, the ticket sales were incredibly low. So low that four weeks into the run, the producers had to pull the plug because they were hemorrhaging too much money to keep it open. Award season was six months away to benefit from a win, they couldn’t run that long with the grosses they brought in. Most Broadway shows survive on future sales, and Bonnie and Clyde didn’t have those.

Kristiane earned notoriety for that production, and garnered her first Tony nomination, but the show was a distant memory for the voters so she lost out to a show that would see an increase in sales from a win.

Pretty Woman was the new frontier for both her and Nigel. She took a chance by leaving a long-running show to take the lead in this one. This was Nigel’s first producing credit and he poured so much of his own money into seeing this production go up. He was taking a risk with her, and she wanted him to be there for all of it. From beginning to end, they were supposed to be doing this together. But he’d missed day one, and Kristiane smarted from his attitude about it.

How casually he tossed their agreement in her face. How calm he was about missing something that meant so much to both of them. How he avoided explaining why he blew her off.

As the argument played over in her mind, her thoughts so internalized, she plowed into Jonathan Pine. Again!

Jonathan caught her easily as he’d seen her coming, heard her coming in fact as he’d been eavesdropping on her argument with Nigel. “Ms. Taylor,” he said with a good-natured chuckle, “We really must stop running into each other like this.”

Blind with fury, Kristiane shook him off and caught her bearings. “You again!!!” He was perhaps the last person on the planet she wanted to run into at that moment.

“I apologize—wait! You ran into me this time!” He attempted to ease her rage some by making a joke of it. “Repaying the favor, I see.”

“Why are you always here?!”

He wouldn’t lose his temper or match hers. He’d dealt with irate and irrational customers before, Kristiane Taylor was no different than one of them. He couldn’t blame her after her argument with Nigel. Her temper and attitude weren’t personal this time – not entirely. “I work here too, Ms. Taylor. I realize that doesn’t matter much to you since you didn’t taste the lunch that I made.”

Kristiane stared at the man dumbfounded, incredulous, and barely understanding what had happened or what he was talking about. Her emotions were pulling her apart, directly down the middle. Upset with Nigel for blowing her off and what this day meant for both of them. Angry with Nigel for holding her lack of romantic feelings for him against her. Confused by his avoidance of where he disappeared to or why he went.

Before she could mentally prepare a response or a comeback for Jonathan and his friendly dig at her, he saw her struggle. He saw her break a little. Tears welled in her eyes, and he didn’t want that for her. “Hey, Ms. Taylor… Kristiane,” he tested using her first name as he offered a reassuring arm around her shoulders. “You’re all right. Come now, you’re okay.” He guided her towards the theatre, and she allowed it. “Can I walk you home?” He caught himself in his slip of the tongue, and rushed another question, “Or call you a cab? Can I call one of your friends to see you home?”

The emotional woman wrecked from the emotions of the day shuddered, but managed to pull herself together before she burst into tears. The cathartic release her anger, frustration and hurt would undoubtedly do her well, but she fought it off. She wouldn’t show this stranger her vulnerability. Although the mist of her near meltdown stood in the corners of her eyes, she valiantly said, “I’m fine. I can see myself home.”

As quickly as she bumped into him, she fled the theatre.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Angela, what the hell happened to the Accountant? He was banged up and bleeding when he crash landed into rehearsal today.”

Over 3000 miles away, the shattered woman collapsed in a fluffy chair that cured little of what she needed. Thirty-plus hours of arguing, manipulating, grilling and rearranging had wrung her out. The first thing she needed was a bed, the last thing she needed was a hothead agent reaming her out about how she kept their mark alive, instead of congratulating her that she did. When she spoke, her voice sunk below its regular decibel and range. “Nigel St. Clair is alive, and that was no small feat without… being… _there_.” She shoved her hand into the air like a punch to no one in particular.

Jonathan could feel the exhaustion in her, through the phone, in her slow speech pattern. “What? What happened?”

Tiredly, Angela recounted what she’d followed from afar, “As if the no fly flag on his passport wasn’t enough insult! St. Clair was chased—from almost when the aeroplane tapped down on the runway. He barely made it to a car.”

“Who? Who was it?”

Defeated, Angela scoffed, “Ordered by—It’s Senior… it has to be. He must’ve ordered it when his passport nonsense didn’t pan out and strand The Accountant in the Dominican Republic. The shit’s hit the fan… it’s only a matter of time…”

Jonathan leaned against the cool vibrating window in his hotel room overlooking the sparkling lights of 45th street, watching the ever-increasing number of people roaming the streets. He spent twenty minutes with Nigel, long enough for the older man to check in and enter his twenty-eighth floor room. Jonathan ordered room service for the injured traveler and bowed out to give him privacy. He immediately dialed Angela with an update when he got to a bug-jamming room to be safe.

“I dressed The Accountant’s cut up leg when he got here.”

A piece of good news resolved Angela back from an assumed failing investigation. Sitting forward in her chair, she said, “Brilliant, Jonathan! Brilliant!”

If this were any other situation, neither one of them would rejoice in another’s injuries, but this was a step forward in their objective. Jonathan had made contact, positive contact. “Do you want to change the plan, Angela? Modify anything?”

Driven to her feet, renewed by progress, the tired woman tapped at a bulletin board crowded with articles, pictures, maps and lists of the Wallace clan members. The old school technique was like a crutch for her, and she relied on it more than she should with all the advancements in technology. A visual of all her elements in her face worked a charm, and she considered herself a successful agent.

“Jonathan, this production that you’re a part of, I think it’s the key. I don’t reckon why—call it a hunch or a gut feeling. But so much is surrounding this production, just a… a clusterfuck of activity. The Accountant is at the center of it.”

“Then I’ll stay on as originally planned,” Jonathan conceded as he moved deeper into his room. “What’s Senior want with him?”

“Senior seems bent on something about The Accountant….  I can’t figure it!” She sighed, feeling like the case could buckle under Senior’s power or spiral out of control with Nigel’s disappearance, dead or otherwise. She cringed to admit it, but voiced her concern to her most trusted agent anyway, “I think, Senior wants… him dead… today—that was some kind of assassin or hired gun or mafia member trying to make good with the big boss by chasing down The Accountant. Whoever it was, he was either going to kill, maim or hurt Nigel. We can’t have it!”

“Damn it!” Jonathan cursed. MI6 needed more time to figure out Nigel’s scheme and catch him in the act. Senior was protecting his interests by either capturing The Accountant or killing him.

“Keep him alive, Jonathan! Your mission now is to keep him alive. We need him. We need the Wallace money, and we need to trace it. You get close to him and his… his… his Disney Princess. She may be our insurance with the Accountant.”

Jonathan wasn’t thrilled about involving the actress, not only because he didn’t fancy her much, but it was time to advance on the Accountant. “I don’t think she’s in on this.”

“Insurance,” she reminded. “We need one at this point.”

“But an actress?”

“Could be a cover, Jonathan.”

He shook his head, feeling in his gut that it was wrong. Her performances weren’t her cover, but her passion, her calling. Her performances were genuine. “But—she appeared upset, and Nigel didn’t say where he’d been. Not to her and she asked.”

“Then we use her as collateral if they’re lovers.”

“They pretend not to know each other, Angela. It’s… _odd_ , their relationship.”

The exhausted woman smacked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Suspect. Why else would they pretend not to know one another if not for business?”

Jonathan couldn’t answer, but there had been something loaded in Kristiane’s questions to Nigel. ‘What the hell happened to you? What happens to you out… there?’ her words echoed around in his head. There was caring and concern in her questions, but there was also a fear. Maybe she feared being caught up in this Wallace business, but as an outsider, Jonathan heard something wholly unknown to her. She woudn’t ask in that way if she was afraid for herself.

Pushing the issue with Angela wouldn’t gain them anything, but earning Kristiane’s trust might. Jonathan dropped it, for the present. Angela gave him orders to get close to Nigel St. Clair and Kristiane Taylor, and Jonathan intended to do just that.

~*~*~*~*

 

As the morning before, Jonathan was back in the theatre well before everyone else to prep breakfast. The kitchen was located on the second floor with the theatre and the conference rooms, used primarily for business or award or convention dinners. Although it was bigger than he was used to working in, Jonathan tailored the space and his menus to work in the tightest area possible. He felt more in control of the day that way.

His crew of six, bemoaning the early morning call, rolled in an hour after he set up the stations. It was summer holiday when most university kids goofed off, slept past noon and enjoyed the beach. But these musical theatre students were overachievers, earning and saving their pennies for their many acting and singing lessons.

Angela, pleased by the news that Jonathan made contact with Nigel, encouraged him to do more, exploit that friendship and continue seeking some connection with Kristiane. According to the head of this Wallace operation, two avenues were better than one. Even if Nigel seemed ready to confess his sins, it wouldn’t hurt to have Kristiane in their pocket too.

Jonathan tried to work out the argument he eavesdropped on between Nigel and Kristiane, but he couldn’t understand the nature of that relationship. Why did they pretend to be working acquaintances in front of others while they’d had two dates—or every appearance of that only days ago? Why would they hide that they were close?

Like the first morning of rehearsals, Jonathan witnessed Kristiane arrive a half hour before everyone else and sneak into the music room alone. After leaving things with her the day before, he didn’t want to get on her wrong side. He’d leave her for the present, but watch her closely. She appeared composed, more so than the night before when she had her quarrel with Nigel.

The executive producer limped into the kitchen to fetch a rather large cup of coffee for his meeting with the director. “Good morning, Pine. May I inconvenience you for some coffee?”

“Yes, sir. Milk? Sugar?” He turned his back to the newcomer for a split second to open the refrigerator.

“No need, but thank you. This,” he lifted the full cup that Jonathan handed him, “will have to substitute for something stronger, I’m afraid.”

Inclining his chin, Jonathan gave him a once over. “That kind of day already?”

“Erasing the day before. As an aside, I do, though, appreciate everything you did for me yesterday.” Nigel lifted his arm and clapped Jonathan around the back on the opposite shoulder. “Stand up thing, that. Thank you.”

“I’m here to help.”

~*~*~*~*

 

A strange routine fell over the Marriott Marquis, especially for the cast and crew of Pretty Woman over the next few days. Nigel and Chelsea, at their morning meetings, created the schedule for the rest of the week. The first half of day two would be spent on creating the characterizations from deconstructing the script, then the cast divided into groups.

Kristiane and Ray worked with Chelsea on some of the more intimate scenes, building their chemistry from scratch as they’d never worked together before. They were casual acquaintances from attending awards shows and Broadway Cares Equity Fights Aids events, like softball games and Thursday night bowling. Lissa also spent a majority of her time with them, since all of her scenes were solely with Kristiane.

The chorus and ensemble members broke off into two groups, one learning a number of dance sequences and the other to work on vocals. As producer, Nigel divided his time with each group to see how things were progressing, but relying mostly on Chelsea, the dance captain and the musical director to run the bulk of rehearsal. The stage manager followed him around taking notes for the other departments.

~*~*~*~*

 

“I’m staaaaaaaarving,” Lissa whined, weaving her arm through Kristiane’s. The stage manager called lunch break exactly at one in the afternoon for the cast after working five hours steady.

The cast had been divided up into three separate groups again, some to learn blocking for some of the group numbers, some to work vocals, and scene building for the three leads. Everyone seemed in high spirits, as it was the beginning of their new show. Boundless energy filled the second floor with creative harmony. It was fresh, but oddly familiar for each one of them, falling into this new family.

The enthusiasm exploded from the rehearsal rooms at the same time every day to the theatre lobby for lunch. It was puzzling to Jonathan the amount of preparation that went into having all the dishes and supplies laid out, compared to how quickly it went to voracious appetites of exuberant actors. The effort was worth the payoff since the cast didn’t shy away from gratitude or showering praise on the catering crew. Most of the actors flattered Jonathan and his six helpers with compliments. The convenience of a catered breakfast and lunch was a new novelty for many of them, as Nigel had gone one step beyond the norm to spoil his cast.

“Didn’t you visit the breakfast table this morning?” Kristiane tugged at Lissa, joining the line towards the theatre.

Her friend indulged in a blueberry muffin, an orange juice, a banana, and then a cinnamon bun earlier that morning. Lissa, not only enjoyed the food, but the man serving the food, and she wasn’t afraid to let him know it. “Four times! It’s all… really... scrumptious!”

“The food or the man?”

“There’s enough affection in my heart for both.”

Kristiane shook her head, sizing up the number of people in front of them on the line, considering how to duck out before she was caught without eating again, for the fourth time that week. “That’s not affection, Liss… that’s lust.”

“Oh, I have that too! In spades.”

“Four times, you said? Are the buns that good?”

“Jonathan’s are, and it’s worth visiting more than once—just for the eyeful.”

The girls arrived in the lobby to see the line of actors at the buffet table. Ray’s jovial charms were turning two of the female servers into goo at the end of the line while other hungry people hopped in and around them to fill their plates. After choosing their fare, smaller groups and cliques reconvened to talk over their lunch spread out around the second floor of the hotel. Nigel and Jonathan were standing at the front, discussing the arrangement and debating other alternatives because of the crunch at the start.

At seeing them, Kristiane tried to hoist Lissa off of her arm, instead of facing them. “You get some food—“ she pointed to the spot that they had lunch the day before—“I’ll meet you by our pillar, ‘kay?”

Lissa held fast to her friend’s arm, “Don’t make me go it alone.”

Playing off her reluctance, Kristiane laughed. “You were there four times this morning. I think you can handle this one…”

“Handle! Yes!” she made a squeezing gesture with her hands, like checking fruit in the grocery store. She pumped her fingers with each syllable for emphasis, “HAN – DLE!”

Both women collapsed into each other in peals of laughter, holding onto each other to stay on the feet.

After recovering from the obscene hand gesture, Lissa held even tighter to Kristiane. “This is why I need you with me, K. Who knows what I’ll do to that man? And the boss man is… right… there…”

From the small expanse, as if Nigel heard someone refer to him, he looked in their direction, and his eyes met Kristiane’s. Her breath clicked in her chest and her heart skipped a beat, maybe two. Her argument with him from three days before festered in the back of her mind, and it wasn’t settled by any means. She knew she behaved badly, but so had he.

Nigel tore his gaze from hers and said something to Jonathan, a reaction to their ongoing debate on how best to serve the company.

Kristiane wanted to resolve and recover this at odds thing with Nigel, but she wasn’t sure how or when. There were always too many others around. He was one of her closest friends, but their bond was complicated. Hardly prepared to talk, Kristiane made another attempt to bow out gracefully with Lissa. “This is not the time to introduce me into your… liaison? With your new love.” Her hand fluttered under her chin to fan away the imaginary vapors.

Lissa’s pout bloomed as her dark eyes lost a little of their flare. “He’ll find me more interesting with you around because you don’t show _any_.”

“Can’t argue logic like that… Fine, you go fawn and I’ll be a cardboard cutout.”

As the girls finally made their way into the queue, Nigel flatly greeted, “Ladies.” He half bowed and almost stepped away, avoiding Kristiane’s eyes.

He didn’t walk away, although he wanted to avoid Kristiane’s infuriatingly beautiful face. He loved her. He hated her. All at once. The memory of her, all their trips to her favorite frozen yogurt place, Off the Wall, their picnics in Bryant Park, their eloquent and utterly ridiculous discussions about the accessibility of eggs in every meal of the day in one form or another, dating her without dating her, the scent of honeysuckle that surrounded her like an aura all the time, and how much he detested picking a fight with her. He chose that path instead of honesty, and Kristiane deflated some when he evaded her nonverbal communications again.

Kristiane cared about him as much as she could, he knew that. She didn’t believe in love and it was that part of her that Nigel had trouble relating to. Of the two of them, he thought himself the darker and more distant after what he had done to get to where he was, but her need to belong and be recognized as talented or educated… or productive, ruled by her ambition, kept them from developing beyond friends.

Even though she couldn’t love him the way he wanted, if he thought about it, he couldn’t resent her for it either. He wanted to, he wanted to hold it against her for real, then he’d have a way of getting over her, getting her out of his system, but he couldn’t. Saying it to her in the heat of an argument was only a decoy, a diversionary tactic, to avoid the real issue. He wasn’t angry with her, not really; he was angry with himself.

Nigel St. Clair lived two lives, almost entirely separate from one another. He managed for years to keep a clear line of definition between them, but the line had blurred, and it was no longer as straight or as bold as it once had been. The blame, the responsibility, the guilt lay on his shoulders.

He lived in danger every day, and he put Kristiane in the heart of it. Unintentionally.

All because he loved her.

Kristiane’s evident confusion, her denial and her disillusionment slowed her steps so much that Lissa looked to be dragging her. The young actress that needed someone to believe in her wanted to run straight back into Nigel’s good humor. The jaded city girl wanted to turn her back on him and never look back. Instead Lissa kept her in the only place in the world that made her uncomfortable. Nigel pretended to lose his focus on the line of actors to the beverages a few feet away and limped in that general direction. Not far, but clear enough that he put distance between himself and Kristiane.

Jonathan cut in before anything more could be said, “What can I get for you, ladies?”

Lissa squeezed Kristiane’s arm instead of saying what she truly wanted to.

Kristiane forced a smile, juggling her lustful girlfriend and ignoring the pink elephant that was her estrangement with Nigel. Gritting through the knotted stress in her stomach, she greeted Jonathan with a throwaway, “Hey.”

Enamored Lissa babbled her food preference in a high pitched voice, at least higher than her regular speaking voice.

Once Jonathan saw to her, he looked to Kristiane expectantly. “And you, Ms. Taylor?”

“None for me, thanks. I’m here for moral support,” she pointed towards Lissa, who had taken up a conversation with a shell-shocked Aaron. “Maybe… chaperone?”

“Am I that frightening?”

“Not at all, but Lissa is.”

Jonathan humored her with a small chuckle. “But, you, Ms. Taylor, another day without something to eat?”

Kristiane glanced at Nigel’s back, briefly, gauging how to answer. “I brought lunch from home, like I do every day.”

Jonathan tried not to see it, tried not to see Kristiane’s hurt, her pain at this estrangement from Nigel. He knew that they hadn’t talked, because Nigel spent so much time with him. Every morning, the producer came in early for coffee and had a conversation with Jonathan, about anything at all. After dressing the wound and earning Nigel’s trust by staying quiet, Jonathan became friends with The Accountant without trying overly hard. Kristiane, on the other hand… she proved more difficult.

The night manager, the silent watcher, the study in human behavior read the harrowing disconnect that she felt, saw it in her eyes. Her face read as relaxed except for the light lift of her cheeks, nearly a squint but not quite as if she was trying to read Nigel’s body language. She masked her pain when Nigel avoided meeting her eyes a few times.

Jonathan recognized when she mentally threw in the towel and gave up after three days of no response from Nigel. Seeing her experience that, whatever happened or was happening between her and Nigel, Jonathan saw her humanity. At least in that moment when she looked conflicted, he saw it. She wasn’t a heathen, or devoid of emotion, she only knew how to bury it.

“Are you sure I can’t get you anything? A little comfort food? Kale salad?”

“Is Kale considered comfort food? It’s green!”

Jonathan reached for the tongs to mix the half gone pasta salad that he made in bulk that morning, stirring what was left of it. “My recipe is.”

Kristiane shook her head, turning down another dish of his. If she were honest, it looked heavenly and she wouldn’t mind tasting some.

“I’ll get you to try my food one day, Ms. Taylor, I’m certain.”

“Oh yeah? Do you think?” She half turned on her heel to follow after Lissa who called to her. “Do me a favor…”

“What’s that?”

“Hold your breath.”

~*~*~*~*

 

Nigel took great pleasure in watching Kristiane dish some of her brand of attitude and sense of humor on the caterer. The other man didn’t deserve it, far from it, but it wasn’t aimed at him this time. Schadenfreude.

“You haven’t won that one over yet?” Nigel commented at the scowl on Jonathan’s face.

“Not for lack of trying, she hates me. I smile, I give her politeness, I give her manners. I even try comedy… I can’t get past the hard outer shell.”

Nigel shouldn’t have laughed, but those approaches didn’t work on Kristiane. His little bird required a different approach. “Jonathan, take a stroll with me. Aaron can cover,” he waved a hand in the young man’s direction.

Instead of serving, the young man was taking in a healthy eyeful of Kristiane and Lissa’s backsides, as attractive as they were, as they walked up the stairs out of the theatre. He tipped his hand in an obedient gesture all the same.

Jonathan dutifully untied and abandoned his apron behind one of the tables, noticing that his first aid on Nigel’s leg worked a charm. As he straightened and fell in step with his mark, he pointed it out, “Sir, your leg appears better. It’s healing then?”

“Yes, thank you,” he said distractedly, his thoughts on the talk he requested. “Now, I’ve a personal interest in seeing my lead fed well, so I’ll let you in on a secret.” Nigel led them in the direction of the escalator to the third floor, where the cast didn’t go until the end of rehearsal.

“Kristiane claims not to have any… secrets that is,” Jonathan dropped his voice as they found their way to the wall of Broadway show posters.

Nigel turned towards the wall completely, his back towards the cast for privacy, nodding for Jonathan to join him. “To get along with Kristiane?”

“I’d fancy knowing, at least to be peaceful,” he said, matching his stance.

“Kristiane is a performer, Pine. An excellent performer.”

“I reckon that’s true.”

Nigel smirked, his eyebrow darkening, but his mouth lightening. Jonathan hadn’t followed his subtle words in quite the right way. “Pine, that means she’s got an ego. Not a distracting one, not obnoxious or obvious, but she has one. Most performers do, some earned, some not.”

“And Kristiane’s?”

“Oh, earned. Very very much so. That’s why she’s my lead.”

“Right,” Jonathan replied on automatic. He wasn’t an expert in judging talent or an artist’s methods. All of it felt foreign to him. He had heard Kristiane sing and perform a few times, and though musicals and singing only made his head spin, he could admit that she did sound pleasant. Pretty even. He couldn’t find a word to…

Nigel broke into his thoughts. “Kristiane has an ego, Pine.”

“Right…” He couldn’t be sure what to do with that bit of information.

“Stroke it. A lot. Pet it. Manipulate it. That’s the way to get to her, most performers actually,” he turned in his spot, gesturing to the cast spread throughout the open space. “All of them, they live for applause. They thrive on acceptance. It feeds them and keeps them going, from show to show. Kristiane is the same.”

Jonathan let his eyes search out each of the faces he’d come to learn over the past few days. Ray fit the profile that Nigel painted. Lissa did. He could assume that Kristiane did the same, but she hid it better than her two counterparts. He mulled this over, to find a way to make it work for him.

Nigel’s voice evened to a dreamy not quite monotone, but a relaxed reflective mellow tone. “She’s got a beautiful sound, Pine. Clear, controlled… exquisite really. Listen to her sing. Let her voice move you and then you’ll know exactly how to communicate with her.”

It wasn’t a task he particularly cared for. Jonathan had his doubts that he could do it, because he didn’t get on with her.

Nigel saw the chef struggle with the information given. “It’s a special form of catering. Cater to the performer in her first. Feed the ego, then I think you could feed the actress.”

Jonathan huffed a small chuckle and glanced at the floor in an indication of humility. “It’s all quite one sided, isn’t it?”

“That’s the beauty of it, Pine. She’ll reciprocate in her own way, and she won’t notice. All you’re doing is validating her and she’ll soften. She can be a tough cookie, as these Americans call it. But she’s also a sweet, vulnerable girl under that somewhat jaded exterior.”

Jonathan watched Nigel’s face as he spoke. “You’re in love with her,” he commented without thinking about the consequences. He caught himself up immediately after he said it, the apology flowed easily. “I’m terribly sorry, sir. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Nigel clapped the perceptive man on the back. “You’ve discovered my secret. I don’t hide it well, I’ll give you that,” he accepted some of the blame for revealing something he shouldn’t have. “I’d like to keep that between us really, yeah?”

Jonathan stressed earnestly, “Absolutely. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything really…”

“She’d prefer if nobody knew.”

Jonathan caught sight of the cast as a particularly loud eruption of laughter carried from one cluster of actors, considering if he should ask what Kristiane and Nigel meant to each other. Instead, he stayed quiet, and let the answers come to him… if he was patient enough to wait it out.

If he had enough time to wait it out…


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the corner of the room, hovering in the doorway connecting the kitchen and the ballroom, Jonathan took Nigel St. Clair’s advice. He couldn’t waste any more time, with Nigel in danger, the fate of the investigation rested firmly on Jonathan’s shoulders. The advice had been listen, just listen to Kristiane. She sang, so he stood and listened, heard her.

He listened to her sing the first day they met, when she thought she was alone. He heard a ballad of a song and the desperate words of a confused woman.

_Maybe I like it this way._

_I like the way he laughs_

_His strange and silent stare_

_I like the way he moves_

_The way he's always there_

_The way he calls my name_

_The way he takes control_

_I like the way this man has stirred my soul_

 

Jonathan’s staff had breakfast well underway, and could manage without him for a few minutes. He only had a small window of time to talk to her before Ray and his barreling personality would join her.

Kristiane stood beside the rehearsal piano, her gaze entirely focused on the black and white keys of the instrument while her emotions focused on the lyrics coming from her. She looked smaller somehow, and Jonathan knew he’d built her up in his mind. For the past few days, she’d been this elusive unapproachable, bigger than life creature because she played evasive and defensive. And so much of his infiltrating into Nigel’s life, revolved around getting into hers that she had become an obstacle, rather than an accessory.

But in the hushed atmosphere of the grandiose ballroom standing beside the grand piano, she looked almost ordinary. She still struck him as beautiful, a gorgeous woman, but there and then, she was no more than a 5’2” ingénue in sculpted jeans and a musical (Camelot? Carousel? He couldn’t be sure) themed t-shirt.

The song Kristiane sang almost acapella sounded of a haunting melodic ballad. Jonathan couldn’t name the tune, but he understood the lyrics and the emotion she put into them. In the context of the argument that Jonathan overheard between her and Nigel, he assumed she felt compelled to sing it for that reason.

 _In a very unusual way_  
I think I'm in love with you  
In a very unusual way  
I want to cry  
Something inside me goes weak  
Something inside me surrenders  
And you're the reason why, you're the reason why  
You don't know what you do to me  
You don't have a clue  
You can't tell what it's like to be me looking at you  
It scares me so that I can hardly speak

 _In a very unusual way_  
I owe what I am to you  
Though at times it appears I won't stay, I'll never go.  
Special to me in my life  
Since the first day that I met you  
How could I ever forget you  
Once you had touched my soul

_In a very unusual way  
You made me whole_

Jonathan had yet to work out the details of their relationship. Over lunch the day before, they’d been civil, although maintaining the appearance that they didn’t know each other well, until Nigel revealed himself. Jonathan thought he saw Kristiane’s feelings to Nigel even in her silence, and now with her song. Nigel told Jonathan to listen to her, and through her singing, he’d understand. Perhaps this song, these lyrics, in her own space, in her own way, she was telling Jonathan what he’d been trying to suss out for a fortnight.

Maybe she was secretly in love with Nigel too? Maybe both songs Jonathan heard her sing were about Nigel?

When she finished her song, and the solemn notes faded into memory, Kristiane sat down at the piano bench, unaware that he stood there. It took a few breaths for him to decide to make a move, using Nigel’s expertise. “Ms. Taylor, forgive me,” he approached cautiously, almost sheepishly, “I couldn’t help but overhear.”

 

Her eyes lifted from the keyboard in surprise. Nobody bothered her in the days she snuck in early to warm-up and practice early.

“The kitchen is just there,” Jonathan explained, pointing to the door to the kitchen. “If I may say,” he rushed, hoping his words were quicker than her annoyance, “Your song… uh, your singing—I was mesmerized. I couldn’t bring myself to interrupt, but it’s quite… lovely, that.”

Kristiane froze for a moment, blinked and then nodded her head in a bow. “Thank you.” The tone was the same she always spared for him. Not cold, but not warm either. Her eyes returned to him warily, waiting for him to take it back or leave.

It wasn’t quite the reception he hoped for, but he couldn’t expect her to grovel at his feet for sparing her one compliment. “Do you play?” he pointed to the piano, chancing a step closer, feigning some interest in her.

Her song had been almost been acapella except when she tapped a key to make sure that her voice matched pitch to it. Her expression dropped to one of disappointment. “Sadly, no… not much. I know notes, and a few bars of random songs that I used for auditions… like ‘I Feel Pretty’ and ‘On My Own’ and other simple melodies.” Her fingers ghosted over the 88 keys with reverence. She regretted not studying piano during her time at university beyond a few meager lessons. Ever since, finding an accompanist proved difficult during audition crunches or for practicing.

“I’m sorry.” Why was he always apologizing to her? But he saw her longing in the way she caressed and petted the keys, an impromptu song that would never make it to the ends of her fingers.

Before he could ask her something more about reading music, Kristiane sang again.

_I feel pretty,_

_Oh, so pretty,_

_I feel pretty and witty and bright!_

_And I pity_

_Any girl who isn’t me tonight._

This time, a happier tune as her hands expertly played the music to match her melody. After a few bars, she abruptly stopped, “That’s all I know.”

“That- that was very good,” he commended. It wasn’t a lie. The juxtaposition between the melancholy tune of the first song and the up tempo of this one stunned him. Her commitment to each came with a practiced ease and elegance, but not forced or rehearsed. Jonathan didn’t have the head or the vocabulary to describe singing or critiquing a performance so he said the only thing that came to mind. “It’s a pretty sound.”

Kristiane smiled. Finally! A small but reluctant smile, but he saw it. “That was from West Side Story, it’s one of the more well-known musicals.”

Jonathan closed the last few steps between him and the piano. He wanted to ask if she truly felt pretty, as he thought she did. He believed she did from the way she manipulated the sound coming from her, and he thought her prettier without her air of unapproachability. He leaned his elbows upon the closed smooth surface of the piano hood to talk to her. “I’ve heard of that one before... and I think that song too!”

She plunked out the melody of ‘I Feel Pretty’ again, at a slower tempo softly, underscoring her speaking voice. In hushed, reflective tones, she said, “I think I knew the score by the time I was five. My first words were Sharks and Jets.”

He recognized that reference as the warring gangs in the musical. He’d seen scenes in passing from the musical throughout the years, but never gave it much attention.  

“I named my Cabbage Patch Kid Maria and my Barbie Anita…” At the slight confusion rippling over his eyebrows, she explained, “They’re the two main female roles in the show.”

“Ah… and did you ever perform in that one?”

The innocent question and the earnestness in him endeared her a small amount. He resembled a child presented with a bicycle for the first time, having no idea what he was in for but eager to begin. “Oh, no… I wish! But Maria… well, and Anita, too… were written for Puerto Rican women. That figures into the story. The white boy and the Spanish girl, star crossed lovers in a Romeo and Juliet remake. There aren’t many white female roles in that one… a male dominated musical. But that doesn’t stop me from singing any of the songs including Something’s Coming, Tony’s solo or Cool, Ice’s solo.”

“Cheeky.” He recognized that she was fearless and brave when it came to her craft but she enjoyed pushing boundaries for her own fun.

Kristiane fell silent, offering no more of herself as he thought she might, although he wasn’t surprised that she didn’t. Nearly a week since he bumped into her on purpose, and they finally shared a conversation. He hadn’t melted her ice immediately though, she still seemed guarded.

“May I ask you something?” he tried with as much caution as he had approached her at the piano.

She matched his caution with suspicion, but hesitantly agreed. She nodded once, unable to ignore the curiosity at the heart of it.

“Why won’t you try my food?”

The teasing lilt made her crack a legitimate smile, with white straight teeth, berry painted lips and clear blue eyes.

Almost apologetically, he added, gesturing between himself and her, “As one artist to another.” Again, a stroke to her ego couldn’t hurt to lighten her mood. He couldn’t argue that she was gifted, even if he didn’t get the appeal of musicals and singing.

The actress almost looked shy or bashful for a split second. “I don’t want to tell you, but it’s not personal… ummm, or a slight on you.” The second half came out in a slur of words to cover her refusal.

“I can’t help but think that.”

“You’ll think me… I don’t know, _eccentric_ … or crazy… or you’ll just think less of me.”

“I won’t…” he said leadingly, tugging at her conscience to tell him. He wasn’t sure that he didn’t think those things already.

“Don’t think me weird, I have reasons.”

“Okay,” he agreed. “I don’t judge.”

“You might.” When he shook his head again, she got to her feet, finding that she had trouble sitting still when the spotlight was on her personally and not her professionally. But she knew that she had to give in and tell, although she wasn’t sure what motivated her to give in. “You asked for it, and it’s a thing from my childhood… So don’t judge. But I don’t eat line food or mass produced food.”

Jonathan folded his arms across his chest, studying her for a long moment. “Vegetarian?” He wanted to figure out the source of her hang-up.

“No.”

“Food allergies?”

“No… just particular,” Kristiane said with a beaming smile.

“Textures.” He tried one more time, dazzling her with a smile all his own.

“Nope,” she popped the ‘p’ off her lips, punctuating that she wouldn’t reveal her issue and he wouldn’t be able to guess.

“Very well, Ms. Taylor,” still teasing, Jonathan conceded to her victory, “Maybe at one time or another, you’ll tell me.” He stood to his full height, giving the impression that he would go and leave her to her practice. After three steps, he turned back to find her already flipping through her music binder. “Ms. Taylor, if I might…” he sugared his voice with respect, “I’ve a solution to yo--… my problem,” he corrected like the seasoned hospitality expert.

She brushed her hair back over her shoulder and furrowed her brow at him. She hadn’t relaxed to him entirely, holding onto her reserve.

The offer didn’t come easy with her stand-offish attitude, but he proceeded anyway for the sake of the investigation. “Allow me to make lunch for you… anything you want. We can meet in the kitchen at lunch break.” He again pointed to the door in the back corner.

“Oh, no! I couldn’t ask you to do that for me. I’m not special, Mr. Pine. Only particular and… I couldn’t- wouldn’t put you out to do that for me. I’m— I brought lunch from home, like I do for all my rehearsals.”

Jonathan untied and retied his apron around his waist, leveling his knowing eyes on her. “You didn’t ask. I offered and I won’t take no for an answer.”

She began to refuse him again, unsure why she felt the need to turn him down again.

But before she could voice a vowel or consonant, “Lunch for a song. A fair trade. You serenaded me, now I get to feed you. Today,” he said definitively, leaving her no choice. “I have a vested interest in feeding and impressing the star of the show.”

Kristiane turned her head away from him but her eyes remained glued on him with some misgivings about his meaning. “Why me?”

“Come on, Ms. Taylor, you’re in the business of pleasing people. I am too. I work for someone who hired me to feed his staff.” The statement hung there, like a bait on a lure dangled before her, suspended in air, awaiting her pounce. It wasn’t a lie, but the reference to Nigel got her attention.

Her breath locked in her chest as her watery gaze stilled and pierced through him. Jonathan hadn’t specifically meant to manipulate her on purpose, but reading her candid, visceral response, he had to stir and pick at that particular wound.

For Angela, back in England, using every resource at her disposal to unravel the network of crime by infiltrating the money side of the empire.

For the late Lord Mayor of Hammersmith who died tragically at the barrel of Robert Wallace’s hired gun, leaving behind a wife and three daughters.

For the countless, unknown lives Jonathan would save by utilizing this woman and using her for the good of London and New York City.

“And that staff includes you,” he stacked the deck in his favor. “There was a meeting yesterday, and Mr. St. Clair expressed some concern that you weren’t… eating.”

Her fingers curled her hair behind her ears in an anxious manner. “He said that? About me?”

“Yes. He mentioned your name and he told me that he’d like me to serve all his cast members. I can’t say if he knows of your aversion to line preparations… but I offered a solution to that. Think on it.” He didn’t want to overplay his hand, or scare her off, so he left the decision on her.

~*~*~*~*

In the absence of the stage manager, Chelsea declared lunch when she heard the cast in the foyer shuffling towards the theatre past the doors to the rehearsal room. She looked to Ray and Kristiane, then her wristwatch, to give them the all clear for lunch after working on a number of their Act One scenes.

“Kristiane, the transition from Street Walker Vivian to Street Smart Vivian is flawless. Let’s work her heart into it more, right?”

Kristiane nodded, making a note in her script in pencil. She’d memorized her lines before rehearsal started but she used the text as her crutch to get the blocking and motivation into her subconscious. It was a technique that she picked up while touring with the musical Into the Woods. Sense memory didn’t serve her well when she was in a different space, a different theatre every other week. Memorization got her there quicker.

“Ray,” Chelsea addressed, “The Business Man Edward is good. Maybe a smoother, not so confident Edward, especially in the hotel lounge scene.”

With that, Ray shut his script and set it by his rehearsal bag. Digging through his belongings for a can of Red Bull, he swallowed a hefty amount of the energy drink in one go. “Chelsea, let me escort you to lunch. Kristiane, are you grabbing some today?”

She waved them on, declining the offer of Ray’s other arm as escort. She did, however, accept a kiss on the cheek from her costar and whispered compliment that he liked working with her.

Ray and Chelsea disappeared into the crowd of sweaty flushed dancers beyond the open door to the conference room turned rehearsal space. Kristiane hesitated, hung back and considered her options. She could pretend that nothing had changed, that she didn’t know that Nigel expressed a desire to have her eat lunch with the rest of the cast. She could join Lissa and Daphne for lunch like she always did and eat what she prepared at home.

But truth of it was that she felt a compulsion to do what Nigel wanted her to do. She trusted him, and he had her best interests at heart, 100% of the time. After their rift, five days ago, she wanted to do something for him, because he wanted it, because he wanted it for her. To do something to please Nigel, after he’d done so much for her, wasn’t a burden but a calling.

And so, she set aside her script and score and headed for the kitchen door to meet Jonathan. The kitchen stood mostly deserted, a huge expanse of white tile and stainless steel and hum of working refrigerators. There was a world of difference between the expensive geometrical rug and fancy feel of the rehearsal room and the functional industrial kitchen with a swing door to separate the two. The aroma of cooked tomato sauce underlined with bleach assaulted Kristiane’s nose. She followed the line of coolers to the right with her eyes, having never been in the ‘backstage’ of hospitality.

When she looked to her left, she made a beeline to Jonathan. He stood at an industrial sized sink, washing vegetables. The vivid green of the celery stalks and the red of the bell peppers and the orange of the carrots stood out in stark contrast to the cold dull reflective surface of steel. Jonathan himself dressed in his own brand of bland, a blue t-shirt over khaki pants.

As she approached, Kristiane felt a jolt of nerves and her head got a rush of lightheadedness for a moment. It cleared as quickly as it set in, and she suddenly felt the urge to spill all her hang-ups to this acquaintance. Nervous to reveal her eccentricities to another human, but she’d feel lighter for it. She just didn’t want to be judged.

Jonathan sensed her approach, an odd shift in the air that he had no explanation for, other than her charisma filled in the dull background. Turning off the tap, he wiped his wet hands on his apron and turned to her. “Ms. Taylor,” he greeted with pleasant shock and welcome.

She took the last three deliberate steps in a slow march and lowered herself into a stool at the counter between them. “I don’t know how you convinced me to do this.” It was a more self-deprecating statement than he expected.

“I suspect curiosity more than anything else.” He lifted the stiff material of his apron and wrung out his hands in it, drying the skin between his fingers one at a time. “So tell me… what will you eat?”

Kristiane looked down at her knotted hands on the countertop as if they held her reasons for reluctance to eat. She chuckled more to herself than to him. “Believe it or not, I’m actually not that picky.”

He gave her a pointed looks.

“Yes, okay… picky but not unreasonable. I avoid dairy… well, I try to avoid dairy. I don’t eat as much dairy while rehearsing or performing. I can’t avoid it completely. I’m addicted to Starbucks vanilla lattes.”

He couldn’t help himself, but he laughed out loud. Not at her but with her because she responded to his laugh. It explained her frequent stops at the Seattle mega corporation while he followed her the first week. “Starbucks. Seems mass produced to me.”

“Not quite. They make to order. No fat milk and extra vanilla, and George makes it the best!”

“George?”

“The barista downstairs. Putting our rehearsals in a building that has a Starbucks on the first and the eighth floors is lethal. But George works the afternoon shift at street level, from 2pm to 11pm, Monday through Friday.”

Jonathan mimicked his pose from the morning, bent at the waist and rested his elbows on the countertop to be level with her. Like that morning, he did it to make her feel more comfortable, to put them on even ground. “Do you go home with a paycheck?”

“I do. I do. I scrape by. I put myself on rations, one a night on the way home. After singing for the day.”

Jonathan moved to the refrigerator and opened it to review the contents inside. “Okay, so no dairy…” He began pulling out and stacking ingredients on the counter, considering menus and dishes in his head that would simultaneously show off his skills but also quick and easy to make.

Before he got elbows deep though, she asked beside him from her stool, “Am I… am I keeping you from service?”

“Aaron’s running the service today. He’s quite good actually. His parents own a restaurant and he’s worked there off and on since he was sixteen.”

Kristiane propped her elbow up on the countertop and rested her chin on the heel of her hand. “Is that true? Do you know where?”

“I don’t,” he said distractedly as a jar of peanut butter caught his eye. Inspiration possessed him, and he knew what he wanted to make for the picky Broadway singer. “I’m sorry. I’ll ask him.” He placed several key ingredients in front of her.

“Oh, it’s not that… it’s okay. Only curious.” Her eyes dropped as her voice dipped significantly when she tacked on, “My parents own a bakery, upstate…”

From the dark look on her face, Jonathan sensed not to ask about it. He read her stress about it, her hands clasped together so hard her knuckles were white and her eyes unfocused from her hands and went vacant. He placed a sauce pan on the countertop from overhead and began mixing some of the things he’d fetched from his hunt through supplies.

Kristiane shook off her quiet, watching him navigate around the space easily. “Can I help?”

“Do you cook?” he looked from his array of spices with surprise.

“Don’t look so shocked, Mr. Pine. Like I said, my parents, both of them were in the food industry…” she quickly corrected, “Are. Are in the food industry. They taught me a few things, and some took, most didn’t. But I can probably rock your world with my personal pizza…”

Success! Jonathan had her talking more comfortably than he’d ever had before, so he took her challenge as an offer. “I may take you up on that.”

Their eyes met over his pot of raw ingredients, peanut oil, chilli flakes, brown sugar, soy sauce, peanut butter and coconut milk. Kristiane was the first to break it with a smile and hooking her hair behind her ear.

“How do you feel about chicken?” he asked smoothly, taking the tension out of the quiet.

“It’s never offended.”

“Brilliant.” He handed her a plastic chopping board from a nearby drawer and a red chilli from his collection of vegetables. “And your chopping skills?”

“Above average,” she answered, taking the proffered knife carefully from his hand. “How do you want it?”

“Fine.”

~*~*~*~*

While he prepared her meal, they shared an effortless, good-humored conversation about food and some of their experiences cooking. Kristiane compared some of his kitchen stories with her backstage antics. Twenty minutes later, Jonathan presented Kristiane with three shot glasses filled with marinated, skewered Chicken sticks dipped in Satay sauce on a silver tray. “Tada!”

She admired the presentation first, “Jonathan!” she breathed out on a whoosh. “These are… well, they’re gorgeous!”

“Then we’re even. Your voice was too.”

“It smells divine,” she complimented positioning the tray in front of her. “I love satay sauce, and it’s…” She stopped to lift one of the sticks from its glass. “This looks incredible!”

Leaning down once again, Jonathan enjoyed her response to her food that he prepared for her. Her reactions of awe and compliments were entirely unprovoked, and she wasn’t shy about expressing it. When she took her first bite, she hummed her appreciation around a mouthful of food. He got her in the stool under pretenses, but he liked having her there. She hadn’t entirely lowered the guarded, defensive cover that she wore, but he got a glimpse of the sweet creature that Nigel eluded to, the woman that Nigel admired so much.

When her lunch hour was coming to end, she thanked Jonathan for his service. He offered to make her lunch anytime. “If you’ll have me back…”

“It would be my pleasure, Kristiane,” he said sincerely, without reaching for it around her attitude. She was pleasant, despite the bit of work he had to do to break down her walls.

“Thank you for telling me that the boss was concerned about me. I want to keep him happy. I can’t disappoint him.”

Jonathan decided in a split second to push his luck and encourage her to tell him why precisely she felt the way she did. “Oh? Why’s that?”

Her eyes shifted from his left to his right, trying to read him like her script, to understand why he was so interested. But she didn’t see it, only a man asking why she phrased things the way she did. Carefully she answered, “Because he took a chance on me… he signs my paychecks.”

~*~*~*~*

“Updates?” Angela answered his check in phone call that evening by cutting out the bullshit to get to the point straight away.

Jonathan sat down on his bed in his hotel room, staring blankly at the abstract painting on the wall. He felt like he did at a particularly long night at one of the hotels he’d worked. If he’d been wearing a tie, he’d be tiredly loosening the knot without much energy. Tiptoeing around the actress made him feel as if he were the ballet dancer. He knew how to work her, at least, from his conversation with Nigel.

“Kristiane had lunch with me today. I’ve made progress with her.” A victory of sorts for the investigation into The Accountant.

“Well done, well done. And her relationship to the Wallace Empire?” she asked chewing on the cap of her pen.

“Unknown. She still pretends to not know him personally, at least she did with me. I’ll work around to it. I know she’s involved with him in one way or another. I used his name to get her to have lunch with me today and she did it for him.”

“And what of the Accountant?”

Sighing deeply, Jonathan answered, “I think he’s staying in the hotel. Can you check his credit card activity?”

“Yeah, I’ll get Singhal on it tomorrow,” she made a note on a post it and stuck to Singhal’s computer monitor.

“When he comes for coffee in the morning, his tie isn’t done up and he isn’t wearing his blazer. It’s outside his character. He’s usually all done up when he steps out in public. I can’t exactly follow him now that he knows me as the caterer.”

Angela acknowledged with a grunt.

“If he’s not leaving the hotel, he knows that he’s in danger, Angela.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I feel like Tom Cruise at the end of one of those Mission Impossible movies,” Jonathan commented into his mobile as he sat down at his laptop upon the desk in his hotel room. He’d finally gotten the opportunity to fill Angela in on all the developments in the case, since he spoke with her last.

“Steven Hill as Dan Briggs is the better choice,” Angela said over a chuckle. The series was better than those blockbuster movies for the American public that have the attention span of a fly.” At least Jonathan had progressed from comparing himself to James Bond to another fictional agent.

“Very well. I am Dan Briggs.” He swiped his finger over the scroll pad to poke his computer awake and readjusted the Bluetooth headset against his ear.

“I might agree with you, if you spill.”

Jonathan quickly keyed in his password to open a connection with Angela’s computer, eager to get her locked into his discovery. “You know what they say, patience is a virtue…” he stalled for time as his speedy internet connection wasn’t as instant as he hoped.

“You let me in on the secret and I’ll congratulate you… almost as much as you’re doing on your own there.”

“It took longer than I thought it would but I got into the Accountant’s hotel room.”

MI6 conducted their research days ago and discovered that Nigel St. Clair was settling his hotel bills once a week with a money order. It took tapping into the Marriott Marquis’ private CCTV at the front desk to track when and how he paid, since MI6 were already tracking his credit cards and corporate accounts. Nigel conducted cash transactions to purchase the money orders from the Western Union on the eighth floor. The money order was then turned in as payment for his suite.

Jonathan deduced that Nigel kept a stash of cash in his room. Obviously that fact couldn’t be confirmed until he got into Nigel’s suite. “Turn your computer on and take a listen for yourself.” He flipped the switch, so to speak, by clicking a few choices and the feed went live. All his undercover detective work paid off and he connected Angela to the Accountant’s bugged hotel room.

The line was quiet except for the subtle background noise of the television, turned to the nightly news coverage and the clickety-clack of computer typing. The volume of the news broadcast was low, for company and white noise for the room’s occupant rather than a rundown on current affairs.

“Tell me I’m listening to the Accountant’s room. Issit what I’m hearing?”

“Live!” Jonathan confirmed. “From room 2814!”

Angela erupted in a whooping, laughing exclamation of success, throwing her arms in the air above her head in a victory v. “You must tell me how you managed this one really.”

“It wasn’t easy. The housekeeping staff are surprisingly protective of their schedule. I had to chat up one called Julia and another called Sarah. I swiped the… clipboard? Right from under Sarah’s nose,” Jonathan recalled the finely timed sequence of events. “Then I had to wait for Natalie—she cleans my room—I had to wait for Natalie to rotate onto the twenty-eighth floor. When she cleans, she opens four rooms at the same time… blitzing all four rooms simultaneously in stages.”

“That seems a bit irresponsible, doesnit?”

Jonathan recounted for his handler the timing of his sneak visit into Nigel’s room during the day while the producer was watching over rehearsals. The MI6 agent snooped through the few things in Nigel’s suite, but it appeared that the producer was living a nomadic life, taking advantage of the Marriott and all its services, but ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

Taking pictures and digging through what little was there, Jonathan read over some of the receipts he found, looking for something incriminating or pertaining to the Wallace Empire. They all looked legitimate purchases for the musical production. The safe in the closet was armed and locked, leading Jonathan to believe that any sensitive or implicating papers would be in there, including the stack of cash he kept on hand to pay for his room. Jonathan tried in vain to tap into Nigel’s laptop, but that was password protected, and probably a host of other security blocks, if he guessed the Accountant’s password. But while Jonathan was there, he planted a bug behind the couch in the living room area of the suite for surveillance.

“Well done, Jonathan. Really well done. This will be brilliant for getting a lead on things,” Angela congratulated, turning up the volume on her end, enough to hear the high and low temperature forecast for the next day in New York City. “I’ll get an agent listening whenever the Accountant’s in the room.”

Jonathan nodded. “Whenever he’s not in rehearsal… I haven’t seen him leave the hotel at all. He comes to the kitchen at seven every morning, spends an hour before meeting with the director or one of the other heads of the production.”

“How many departments are there for a play?”

Jonathan curtailed the impulse to correct her, as Kristiane instilled in him. Whenever he asked how the play was going over lunch, she’d correct him. “It’s a musical, Pine. A show can be a play or a musical, but a play is spoken. A musical is a combination of dialogue and song.” He was fascinated by her passionate recitation of the differences. She’d gone as far as explaining the difference between a musical, an operetta and an opera before lunch was over. He’d never even heard the term operetta before Kristiane brought it up. But now he could recognize one if he heard it.

Angela wouldn’t get it. Angela wouldn’t care.

“There are many,” he explained. “A lot more than you’d ever dream of. I’ve stepped into meetings with publicity and advertising, costumes, props, lighting, sound, construction, designers, musicians… it’s all very complicated.”

“Enlightening,” she answered flatly.

Defensively, Jonathan spoke up, “These people all work hard. I never considered how much preparation goes into an entertainment piece, but it’s quite extraordinary. These actors are singing and dancing eight hours a day to put on a cohesive show. There at least ten people behind the scenes for each of them. It’s quite a thing to witness.”

Angela smirked on her end of the line at the almost impassioned speech. “Is that the Accountant talking? Or the Disney Princess?”

It was true. Jonathan spent a majority of his day with one of them, Nigel in the mornings and sometimes the afternoons and Kristiane at lunch. “Nigel told me how to get along with her, and he trusts me because I bandaged his leg. So far, it’s been successful, except neither one of them has said anything about money, or deals… or anything crime related.”

“Instead you’ve learned theatre stuff.”

Jonathan cupped his hand to the back of his neck, massaging out the knot of stress there. He got to his feet, again trying to work out the conflicting information he knew. “Nigel’s in love with her. He fessed to that… he all but declared it actually.” He told her in a way of explaining how much he knew after a few weeks of observation. “In front of others, he pretends to not know her more than his lead. No more than an acquaintance.” Frustratingly, he pointed out, “I can’t get her side of it… she shuts down about anything personal.”

After two laps around the too small hotel room, he collapsed upon the sofa and rubbed his eyes. “I know more about her from watching her than talking to her.”

“You always were the silent watcher,” she confirmed, her way of acknowledging that he’d done well for his time there so far.

~*~*~*~*

 

Humming the eleven o’clock number of Pretty Woman the musical, Kristiane lingered by the door to the kitchen while Chelsea and Ray cleared out. The three of them finished blocking the climax song before breaking for lunch. Kristiane felt sufficiently tired but invigorated by the show coming together so well. Excitement crept into her veins a little each day as they got closer to getting the show on the stage itself instead of the rehearsal rooms.

She had that light-headed, fluffy open feeling that she got in her head when she sang well, and humming to herself kept that feeling going. When Chelsea and Ray were gone, she pushed her way into the kitchen to meet with Jonathan. It had become a routine, visiting him for lunch each day. After spending so many hours with her musical friends, Jonathan’s quiet demeanor was a pleasant change of pace, a reprieve in the middle of the day.

But Jonathan wasn’t alone this day, and Kristiane almost turned back into the rehearsal room. He and Nigel were talking, and she arrived during a lively discussion about one thing or another. When they spotted her at the same time, the conversation notably halted. She felt like she’d taken center stage in front of a full house naked.

She apologized for the intrusion to fill the void that her appearance created. “Should I go?” A fair question since she was the newcomer and the conversation came to a screeching halt. She posed the question to both of them for different reasons.

Jonathan met her gaze sympathetically, a friendly look when Nigel looked away. The moment was awkward, the silence stretching on after her question.

Nigel composed himself, inhaling deeply as he alighted to his feet. “Ms. Taylor,” without looking at her, “It’s a pleasure. Please,” he indicated the stool that he just vacated, inviting her to sit upon it. “I’ve taken up too much of Pine’s time.”

Jonathan threw him a lifesaver ring, “Sir… really you don’t have to go. I made enough to feed at least six.”

“No, no… no, thank you, Pine. I don’t want to crowd.” Sticking out his hand, he shook Jonathan’s with a confidence that he hadn’t seen in Nigel since London… before Pretty Woman was a blip on the radar. “The discussion has been enlightening. I look forward to more tales of Devon, sounds fascinating.” He turned to leave and said over his shoulder, “Treat Ms. Taylor right, Pine.”

It sounded off the cuff, an afterthought, but it tugged at Kristiane’s conscience. She stared after him dumbstruck, debating silently if she should go after him or just let him go. The situation, rehearsal, didn’t lend itself to an actual talk. Too many people could and would overhear them, so she let him go, though she hurt with the want to clear this nightmare into a distant memory.

Jonathan was treated as a distraction from her unease with Nigel, he knew it. She threw herself into eking every moment of enjoyment out of lunch, her voice too enthusiastic and bright, her personality too engaged.

“Mini chicken burgers with kale lettuce!!” she bubbled when Jonathan presented the lunch made specifically for her. “Took the easy route today, didn’t you, Pine?” Despite her complaint, Kristiane took an enormous bite before she planted her very cute, very feminine rear upon the stool.

“It is Wednesday. After today, it’s close enough to put in the effort to finish strong for the week.” He couldn’t help but smile at her small sounds of satisfaction and the smack of her lips around another bit of food. As much as she enhanced her life with singing, she gave as much back to him when she came for lunch daily. This had been meal number nine, and he found he enjoyed her company for an hour each day. He anticipated her mealtime with him by planning her menu the day before, like he did for the cast and crew.

After a week and a half of complimenting her and stroking the performer ego, he began seeing the sweet, appreciative soul underneath the chip on her shoulder. He wasn’t sure it was there all the time, but she wasn’t exactly forthcoming about anything personal, but then neither was he. He couldn’t tell her about his life other than his background in cooking, which was minimal at best, to maintain his cover as production chef. In reality, his previous work as the night manager of a hotel would lead to why he left that job. Discussing his military background might raise some red flags, if she was in any way involved in Nigel’s business.

“God, Pine… no really,” Kristiane visibly swallowed down a mouthful of food, “I’m not going to be able to fit in my costume. Right now, at this moment, I don’t care.”

He’d grown accustomed to her dramatics and he liked them, especially when she carried on about his food. “What are they dressing you in?”

“The eighties finest. Mini skirt, stiletto boots, a frilly red gown, big hair, small clothing. I describe them as my skimpy set. The hair, though…” she smiled at the sour dough bun. She lifted her arms up, circling her head with her hands, like she was describing the radius of the moon. “This big, and probably takes two hours to tease my hair that much.”

When their conversation lulled, Kristiane became introspective, quiet and sullen. She studied her second mini sandwich with so much intensity, he thought she might be willing it to become a diamond. The fact that she wasn’t trying to fill the quiet with her prattling or singing alerted him enough, even if he didn’t know her that well; she was at the very least distracted.

“Is everything on the up and up?”

“Oh!” she cleared her throat and dropped her un-transitioned sandwich. Her eyes darted to his, surprised that he caught her zone out. “Yes… yes, I’m sorry… I’m… out of sorts today…”

_Tread lightly, Jonathan. Give her enough lead to make her believe that she’s heading the conversation._

The opportunity presented itself for Jonathan to investigate by being a friend to her. “Do you need an impartial spectator to give you some unbiased advice?”

A tinkling giggle escaped from her. “Well, that was a loaded question if ever there was one.”

He chuckled himself, playing off his blunder of too serious too quickly. He bit his lower lip and moved the silver tray from between them to the side, out of the way, for something to do with his hands. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m English. I use more words than entirely necessary. What do you need?”

“An exotic location,” she quipped. She expected a laugh in response to her joke.

Instead, Jonathan checked the time on his wristwatch and his face lightened like a Chinese lantern during a parade. “I’ve got forty minutes to get you back. I know just the place.”

Her eyes went wide. “I was joking.”

“There’s always some truth to a jest, that’s what makes them funny.” He slid her unfinished dish out of the way. Taking her hand, he walked to the end of the peninsula, leading her to stand by tugging her hand along the way. “Leave all this. I can give you the holiday you need.”

Snickering, she allowed him the narrative, “Calgon, take me away.”

Jonathan led her through the kitchen to a corridor on the south side of the building. They entered a long, wide corridor of random doorways. The concrete walls and cement floors were all scuffed gray. A large stainless steel venting duct pipe overhead lined their path to the end. At the wall, there was a freight elevator. Jonathan depressed the up button and within seconds pulled her into the loud clunky steel box.

“This is certainly exotic, not quite the locale I had in mind… but you know, grating is always charming.” She clawed her fingers through the holes of the protective grate at the front of the elevator car.

Jonathan laughed at her poking fun of his choice of scenic route. “Patience. It’s functional and it’ll get us where we’re going.”

A few minutes later and 46 floors up, Jonathan showed her to an exit labeled Roof Access. She’d lived in New York all her life and in Manhattan for eleven years, and didn’t know the Marriott had a roof, not one that could be accessed. Jonathan opened the door for her, and with a hand on the small of her back encouraged her through it.

The sun shone brightly in the brilliant summer afternoon. The door they came through was tucked into the corner of the building and lead to a circular three-lane running track around the perimeter. The red track felt gentler under her high heeled boots than the cement to get there. In the middle of the track was a courtyard garden with benches and flowers and paths within it like the spokes of a bicycle wheel.

Runners and walkers occupied the track, circling the building at varying speeds, some wearing headphones, others conversing with their partners. The Marriott gardeners were trimming and watering the various plants and flowers in the center.

With his hand still at her back, Jonathan guided her like a dancer past some runners to the center garden to a somewhat secluded bench. “Is this exotic enough for you?” He asked over the breeze and the city buzz. Although they were nearly 50 floors above street level, it didn’t block out the cacophony of the city below.

“This is beautiful,” she commented looking around. As she sank into a seated position, she ponied her hair into a thick mess of wavy strands, secured by a band that was on her wrist. “I had no idea that a place like this existed in midtown.”

“Enough to gain some perspective?” Jonathan found her even more beautiful in natural light. She glowed, even in her baggy pants and t-shirt, her standard rehearsal garb. She had shed the dark gloomy cloud that hung over her while around the theatre.

“How did you know that I needed perspective?”

He forced himself to look away from her to the buildings surrounding the Marriott. “You asked for a holiday. There are two reasons for a holiday, escaping stress and cultural enlightenment. New York City is a cultural melting pot, and I don’t think you need any more than your daily overdose of this city.”

Teasingly, she touched her shoulder to his. “You’ve met Ferrett Man on the N train.”

“Uh… Ferret Man?”

“He lives on the N train and can produce a ferret out of thin air… or he carried about twenty of those critters on his person at any given time… producing them like a magic trick while singing Part-time Lover or Like a Virgin—the only two songs he knows.”

“Quaint,” Jonathan joked. “I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure as of yet. The N train?”

“Pity. I think he’s becoming as famous as Elmo and the Naked Cowboy in Times Square.”

“My point,” he said over another chuckle, pointing at her. “Culture overdose. So… perspective,” he delivered as a dig for more information.

Kristiane slumped back against the bench support with a dramatic sigh. “Men suck!” Realizing that she insulted her companion, she added, “Present company… well, the jury’s still out.” She winked when he looked at her.

“Fair enough,” he appreciated her wit.

Kristiane blew out a lungful of Manhattan air on puffed cheeks. “What is it that you people want?”

“I know better than that. I can’t speak on behalf of my species and I wouldn’t step in that quicksand pit with a rope tied to a tree.”

“Smart man… you must be in the minority.”

Investigator Jonathan took over, masquerading as friend to get some more information. “Are you married?” He already knew the answer as an MI6 agent, but not as production caterer.

She stuck out her bare left hand. “I’m not married.”

“Significant other?”

“That’s complicated.”

Jonathan expected more than that, but considering his source, he shouldn’t have been. From previous interactions and encounters with her, Kristiane held her cards close to her chest.

“Boyfriend?”

“Also complicated.”

“Lover?”

“Is there such a thing?”

Jonathan shifted position, leaning back and tipping his face to the sun. He shut his eyes, concentrating on the heat on his skin. He hadn’t had the chance to soak in the sun for quite a few days, the pitfall of working inside all day. “I’d like to believe so. Wouldn’t you?” he hooked his arms at the elbows over the top of the bench back. If he truly thought about the nature of their conversation, he didn’t know if it was the agent or the caterer in him. A hopeful statement didn’t resemble him at all, and he wondered what made him say it.

“I’m not sure,” she lied to cover up her own cynical outlook and she couldn’t pinpoint why. She rarely, if ever, censored herself, but under the summer sun, life felt a little more hopeful.

In his relaxed pose, Jonathan played off how important her answers were to him and his secret mission. “Why the ‘men suck’ statement?” He crossed his right ankle over his left, sinking further into the repose.

_Tell me about Nigel. Tell me what I need to know._

Kristiane scanned her new environment, her trouble with Nigel felt worlds away instead of only floors. Suddenly she erupted into a hearty laugh out of nowhere. “I think I’d rather tell you about my food issues,” she said evasively.

Jonathan opened his eyes again and fixed them on her. “Tell me about that then.”

“I want to, but they’d miss you downstairs when you run screaming from the crazy eccentric lead actress. I can’t take that responsibility lightly.”

 

~*~*~*~*

Kristiane decided to run through her song once more on her own after rehearsal. The only way to get the song into her body was repetition, practicing with the music director and on her own. Her first song of the show set the tone for the rest of it, so she put a focus on getting it right. By the time she’d finished and gathered her score and script to shove into her already stuffed bag, everyone had left for the day. The lights were off in the rehearsal room, almost pitch black except for the seams of light from the partition with the other space and the kitchen door. Near empty, except for Gatorade and water bottles scattered along the table and on the floor were the only signs that life existed within the room that day.

The glass doors to the theatre were locked with no sign of the catering or construction crew. The whole of the second floor felt like a shadow of another time, an echo of earlier activity. Only Lissa stood leaning against a pillar, scrolling through her phone, while waiting for her friend.

“It’s so quiet,” Kristiane remarked on her approach. She readjusted her weighted bag on her shoulder when she stopped at Lissa’s side. “Has everyone gone?”

“I think so,” Lissa said, shutting off her phone and pocketing it. “Latte?”

“I’m up for it.”

As the girls turned to the escalator to descend to the first floor, Nigel emerged from the secluded men’s room in the far corner. Kristiane nearly rushed to him, eager to put an ends to this cold shoulder business he’d been giving her for nearly two weeks. But something seemed off about him, and she stopped short, sound cut off in her throat. He was without a blazer, and it just looked odd and out of place for him. He always wore one, but it wasn’t just that. He looked out of place, out of sorts and out of… time? What would keep him near the theatre so late, after the entire crew had left?

He strode to the second floor landing for the elevators and swiped a keycard in the reader, calling an elevator to another floor. Within seconds, the reader displayed a digital H for the elevator to take him to his destination request. Kristiane couldn’t see the numbers Nigel punched in for the fetched elevator, but that didn’t bother her about it. Why would he need an elevator? Why would he have a key to a room in the hotel?

“Wait here,” she ordered Lissa, jogging to the bank of elevators. She stared at the increasing digital numbers over the doors, indicating which floor it ascended to. The numbers stopped on twenty-eight and Kristiane stood there, trying to reason why Nigel would need a hotel room when he owned an apartment on the Upper East Side. She’s been to his apartment many times, a lush loft space close to the park and a private deck in the back, hidden by other buildings.

“K, you comin’?” Lissa tugged at her shirt to get her attention. “Was that Mr. Moneybags himself?”

Kristiane stole another look at the stalled elevator, docked on the 28th floor, then followed Lissa to the escalator down to street level. “Yeah, yeah, it was. It was Nigel. Why’s he staying here?”

Lissa shrugged distantly. “The rooms are quite nice?”

“No, I know that… what I mean is… You can practically see his apartment from here. Why would he stay here?”

Lissa stared at her friend incredulously, lost and confused why Kristiane would give it so much thought. “Don’t know, K. Does it matter? Are you dating him finally?”

“No! I mean… no, I’m not dating him. And it matters because… well…” Kristiane trailed off, searching for sound reasoning. “Well, it matters because it does.”

“That cleared it right up.”

The truth was she couldn’t explain why it bothered her so much. Logically, it seemed an enormous waste of money to be staying at a hotel, known for its prime location and exorbitant pricing to match, when Nigel had a rather large apartment not far with a huge price tag attached to it. Not only that, but why hadn’t he asked to see her when he was so close? Her apartment was on 48th Street while the Marriott was between 45th and 46th. They were separated by seconds and could easily meet privately after rehearsal to hash out this thing between them.

Lissa swung open the Starbucks door, to the hustle of tourists and performers clamoring for their next caffeine fix. She held the door for puzzled Kristiane, her steps stalled in her confusion. “K, come on… Worry about it later. Or let his wife worry about it.”

“He’s not married, Lissa.”

“Fine, then let the future wife worry about it. The lattes are calling.”

“It just doesn’t make sense.”

“We’ll have some coffee—“

“—Sorry, Liss…” Shaking her head, Kristiane cheated her body away from Starbucks to retreat back to the escalator. “I’m so sorry. I have to go to him. I have to see Nigel.”

“Let it go, K!” She yelled towards Kristiane’s back. “You’re acting the wife without the pretty ring as repayment for all that nagging.”

It was too late, her friend, hell-bent on getting answers, was already riding the moving staircase up. Kristiane waved as she lost Lissa behind the overhang of the second floor. She weaved through some tourists crossing from one set of escalators to the other to go further up. She hung by the theatre doors, out of the way of the other people traversing the floor, looking for means to go higher. She used her cell phone to send a text to Nigel, something she should’ve done after their fight.

_‘Can we please talk? This isn’t the way this is supposed to be with us. I miss you. – K’_

She waited in the foyer of the theatre under the Marquis Theatre sign for Nigel to return her text.

_‘Is Terry at your place? I can’t meet you if he’s there. – NSC’_

_‘Nige, invite me to your room. You’re staying in the Marriott – K’_

_‘I’ll come down to get you. At the theatre, 10 minutes. Security is tight, you won’t be able to use the elevator without a key. – NSC’_

Kristiane paced the carpeted floor, anxious to get past this disagreement with Nigel. She’d been enjoying rehearsals and learning this show, getting it up into something resembling a story. But the gray cloud cover of her estrangement with Nigel overshadowed her full enjoyment, because it wasn’t how it should have been. Experiencing it with him, the promise that they made to one another when they decided together to do this. She wanted to love every aspect again.

Nigel joined her ten minutes later and stopped her pacing, but not her jittery disposition. Kristiane didn’t run to him when she saw him, though it was her body’s natural instinct to do. Instead she fought it, biding her time until they talked. “Nigel, this is long overdue.” Her voice reflected calm and maturity, even if she didn’t feel it.

“I know, little bird,” he took her elbow, guiding her towards the theatre, “But not here.” He glanced behind him to survey the group of tourists moving from floor to floor.

“Take me to your room, Nigel.”

“I can’t do that.” He finally looked her straight in the eyes after weeks of avoidance.

The look shocked her and she felt her reflex twinge inside at the recognition of raw, naked, lustful want. It didn’t shock or scare her to know that Nigel desired her. It was new that he allowed her to see it. It only seemed unexpected after their argument.

As he unlocked the theatre, he kept his eyes on her. “I’ve wanted you for a long time, Kristiane, and I’ve been a gentleman. If I get you alone in a bedroom, I’m quite certain that I wouldn’t remain so.”

Her pulse quickened as Nigel took her hand and led her through the clear doors of the theatre. Breathing shallower, she bit her tongue from saying anything, to neither encourage nor discourage him. She didn’t know how to step lightly around his feelings for her.

Nigel silently led her into the theatre, down the stage right aisle, up the stairs to the stage. The house was eerily quiet in its abandonment, a place frozen in time, the set half constructed and the velvet seats empty for a new audience to fill them.

“Nigel,” she whispered, but nothing more came from her.

Possessed by thinking of her nonstop since their argument (from the distance, for ten years), he combed his fingers into the thick mane of her hair. She knew what he was about to do, and she couldn’t find it in her to stop him. She didn’t want to stop him. After so long, she never felt uncomfortable about Nigel’s love for her, even if she didn’t reciprocate it. She’d give him something of herself.

Nigel stared at the perfectly luscious lips of the mouth that he’d dreamed of having against his. “The only way I’ll stop is word from you,” he stated, drawing her closer. He paused, waiting for her to object, for Kristiane to push him away. “Tell me not to kiss you. Tell me no and I’ll respect it.”

But she said nothing, she couldn’t turn him down outright. She conceded that he’d step beyond the bounds of their friendship just this once.

“I know that you don’t love me the way I love you, but I need to feel you,” his voice was rough with his longing. “I’ve been dying to do this.” Nigel ended his years’ long hunger and curiosity by crashing lips down upon hers. His hands gripped her hair tightly, as tightly as he’d held onto his fantasy of her for years. His passion for her swelled in his chest as his lips parted hers. Where he directed, she followed obediently, returning his kiss.

Kristiane wanted to feel something, anything more than polite acceptance. His kiss felt incredibly meaningful, she felt his deep emotion for her and his desire for her. For her, it was nothing more than a kiss, something to do with another person, something to do with her mouth. If she only returned his feelings… if she only believed in… if only…

The enthusiasm that he expected wasn’t there, not from her, but he couldn’t stop. He felt her wanting to give him emotion behind action, and he overcompensated for it. He wanted it enough for the both of them. She could learn to love him, if he kissed her in just the right way. Nigel crushed her to him with his arms curled around her waist. The clutch of his arms were a testament of how much he loved her.

And then as he settled into the kiss for hours, if she let him, Kristiane’s hands pressed against his chest, an insistent by gentle push to get him to stop. Reluctantly, he tore his lips from hers, nearly crying out in despair that it was over, and he knew it would never happen again. He’d never again taste her strangely sweet tongue along his, her flesh against him, her breath in sync with his panting. In that single instant, his heart shattered, and he heard the crack within himself. His world would never be the same again.

“Nigel,” her beloved and serenely blue eyes lifted to his, “We shouldn’t. We need to talk.”

Heaving an aching sigh from his leaden chest, he tried in vain not to stroke her hair, but he failed miserably. “Nothing’s changed for you, has it?”

She played the silent card again, simply because she didn’t know the most diplomatic way to turn him down. It also seemed exceptionally cruel to do to him when he’d been good to her. Her quiet serenity communicated her heart. She saw his understanding, his devastation and his inability to let her go.

And still he couldn’t hate her, couldn’t resent or even blame her. Kristiane wasn’t his, no matter how much he wished and prayed (as much as a non-religious man could) and hoped. His hands cascaded down her hair along her bare arms to her hands, longing for something far more intimate, an act he’d never have the privilege or luck to perform.

“We do need to talk,” he acknowledged to her, squeezing her hands in his.

“You know that I was worried about you.” She peered up at him, with a poking look.

“Yes, I know that, Kristiane.”

“I didn’t mean to… snap at you- or yell at you.”

“I know that too. I was looking for a bit more sympathy and less dramatics after the day I had.”

She leaned into his chest, laying her head upon it as she wrapped her arms around his waist. “Why don’t you tell me about the day you had? It doesn’t have to be about me. I don’t want it to be.”

Nigel closed his arms around his little bird, inhaling her salon shampooed hair, sweet, sophisticated, but not quite her, and he loved that about her. ”I want to tell you.” When he said it, he knew it to be true, but he also knew that he couldn’t.

“Why didn’t you call me? I was dying to hear from you.”

“It wasn’t intentional, little bird,” he laid his lips on the crown of her head, resting there. “If I could’ve gotten to a phone, I would have. Believe me, your voice is the one thing I wanted to hear more than anything. I always need to listen to you.”

“Are you going to tell me what happened to you that day?”

He hummed in a noncommittal way.

“Are you going to tell me anything that’s going on with you, Nigel?”

“Everything is fine, little bird.” Another duck.

“Why are you staying here? In the hotel?”

“Why not? I’ve a lovely view of Times Square from my room,” he parried in avoidance.

“What aren’t you telling me, Nigel? Why haven’t you talked to me for three weeks?”

He sighed in growing annoyance. “Why the twenty questions on top of the third degree?”

“Because you won’t talk to me.” Her voice was even but she stepped out of his embrace.

“I said it’s nothing.” His authoritative British executive voice that served him well with clients when they didn’t follow deadlines he used on her, hoping it’d be met with acquiescence. But he also knew Kristiane…

Her familiar defensive gesture revisited when she coiled her arms under her breasts. “It’s _something_ , Nigel. You’re staying in a hotel that’s minutes away from your apartment, your home. You’ve avoided me for three weeks. You won’t talk to me and _our show_ … _our project_ … the thing we were creating together—well, we’re not doing it together.” Her voice could be heard off stage, but she softened some to infuse her tone with more emotion. “And I miss you, Nigel! I miss you. I’m worried about you, and I want my friend back, the one who left me… to… to visit Bobby Jay and hasn’t been the same since.”

Nigel visibly squirmed, began squirming in the middle of her speech and continued through the end and beyond. He shuffled and shifted his feet, a subtle back and forth, while rubbing the back of his neck. “Kristiane, I told you… you can trust Bobby.”

“Nigel!” she exclaimed in exasperation. “We’re never gonna see eye to eye on this. And that’s not the point!”

“It is the point. It’s precisely the point. I need you to trust me, and there may come a time that you have to trust Bobby. For me.”

Kristiane squinted at him and shook her head in disbelief, radiating frustration. “Bobby Jay is hardly someone I need to trust, and he had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with us and this thing going on between us.” Suddenly her brain clicked over and she yelled, pointing with an accusatory finger, “You’ve put him between us!”

“And what us is there, Kristiane?”

“There is no us right now! Because you won’t allow there to be. You won’t talk to me! Even now!” She gestured wildly with her hands flung in his direction.

“That’s not for lack of trying!” He skated on thin ice, he knew it.

She sighed dramatically, rage building in the pit of her stomach. She could read his deflections from a mile away through his fidgeting hands. “Kissing me is trying?!”

“I’ve wanted to do that for ten years!”

“What are you hiding?!” she screamed over him at the same time he said it counterpoint.

Before he could stop the hurtful thought, if flew from his mouth, hitching a ride on her question. “I think I deserve it after all I’ve done for you!”

That tipped the scale for Kristiane from frustration into anger. Her pale skin reddened in a flush of outrage. “Is that what I am to you?” So many questions flooded her head at the same time and she hurtled them at him. “Are we even yet? Do I have to fuck you next? Am I to be your willing whore? Is that really what you think of me? After all this time? You’ve kept me around so I can repay you?” Her anger had the questions spit out one after the other, but most of them weren’t very articulate with her mind racing faster than her mouth.

“How dare you!” she finally spat out. “How fucking dare you!”

Nigel, for his part, looked properly shamed and embarrassed for the slip. He hadn’t meant it, not really. It was his ultimate deflection, a diversion to get the attention off of him and her interrogation about Bobby. “I didn’t mean that. You know that.”

“Do I?!?” She spun around, her fingers deep in the tresses of her hair, trying to figure out which level of hell she stepped into and how to get back to reality. She was appalled by Nigel’s behavior and statements. He’d never treated her so poorly, and she felt nauseous for it. One of her best friends in the world had become something vicious. “Nigel, what happened to you? Why are you doing this? Why are you pushing me out of your life?” She turned back around. “Because I’m here to stay now. You hired me to do a job, and I’m contractually bound and obligated to be here.”

Nigel hated hurting her, pushing her away, but she couldn’t know the truth about him. She’d hate him, truly despise him, if she knew what he was capable of and the things he’d done. For that, he finally held his tongue, believing that he’d destroyed their friendship beyond repair. He’d tainted ten years, in a few choice words, and he hated himself for it… more than he had before.

The very thought of performing his show turned her stomach inside out. Holding her stomach, she concentrated on not being sick right then and there. She had whiplash from the change in tone in him, from a passionate kiss to being accused of being an uncooperative whore. None of it sat right with her. “Is this entirely personal? Is it because I won’t sleep with you? Because I’m not in love with you?”

Kristiane stomped off the stage without waiting for his answer, because he wasn’t giving her any. Instead she stormed back up the aisle to the back of the house, and out into the lobby of the theatre.

Jonathan stood in the darkened stage right wing, fresh from bugging Kristiane’s dressing room, quite sure he and MI6 were targeting the correct leverage, but for all the wrong reasons. Having witnessed everything from the kiss all through the argument, he knew exactly how to play things, now that he understood the relationship between Nigel and Kristiane. Jonathan could use her obvious regard for Nigel and her obvious dislike for Bobby Jay to get to the heart of the Wallace Empire.

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The swing door to the kitchen squeaked open to a bang, announcing Nigel’s morning arrival. The natural early riser looked as fresh as having risen fifteen years ago with no rest in between. Jonathan saw the guilt hang on him like a wet burlap sack, weighted, heavy, dampening his natural charismatic businessman façade. Nigel’s fight with Kristiane didn’t keep the demons away. If anything, pushing her away, invited the darkness in.

He dragged his sorry ass onto the stool opposite Jonathan’s prep space. “For the love of God and the Queen, tell me there’s something stronger than coffee brewing in the kettle this morning.”

Jonathan smirked, covering that he knew the details, and apologized. “The cognac got held up in customs this very morning.” Pine proceeded to pour an extra strong and extra tall serving of coffee for the hurting producer. The dark roasted smell took up residence in his nose and woke his own sinuses.

“If I suck on a coffee bean directly, would that count as a shot of caffeine?”

“Depends on what ails you,” Pine produced a coffee bean from the canister above his head and handed it to Nigel. “For experimental purposes… give it a go.”

Pine maintained a friendship with Nigel, a laid back sort of approach to conversation. Try as he might to use the same approach, it was different with Kristiane. The pressure to romance her made Pine try too hard to get close. On the flip side, where Nigel was open, Kristiane was closed off, so Jonathan didn’t have to try so hard.

Nigel flicked the coffee bean into the sink from where he sat. “Married, Pine?”

“No, sir. Not in my line of work. The nights are too long.” Among other things, including bad luck, a broken heart, guilt and a hidden identity. He introduced himself as Jonathan Pine but he rarely allowed others see his true persona. But ‘long nights’ seemed the simplest and possibly truest explanation as to why he was alone, isolated and abandoned. “I was once. A long time ago.”

Nigel combed his fingers through his mussed up hair. “I never married. I’m not sure which is worse, trying and failing or never to have tried at all.”

“You know which side of the fence I sit on in that regard,” Jonathan informed deeply.

“Was she pretty?” Nigel asked suddenly, but his focus seemed to be on the whirlpool that his coffee made in his cup when he stirred and swirled it with a spoon.

Jonathan redirected, leaving that sordid story in the past where it belonged, “Are you planning to marry, sir?”

This pulled Nigel from his revelry. “Me? No! Heaven forbid… no. Marriage is not for me and I’m certainly not for it.”

Hiding his surprise, Jonathan began pouring his chopped vegetables into a large stainless steel bowl, prepping lunch while they talked. “Not even for the pretty little brunette who caught your fancy?”

Nigel gave him the strangest look then, and it wasn’t shock or appall or affront. It was relief, an unloading of a ten-year nuisance, an opening of a secret closet of dreadful skeletons, a lifting of an emotional cloak across his shoulders. “If she would have me, it still wouldn’t work.”

“Because… of?” Jonathan led cautiously. It would lessen his responsibility and help his investigation of her if he knew the nature of Kristiane’s relationship with Nigel. “Distance?”

“You could call it that,” Nigel said sagely. “Kristiane. She’s a far better person than me. She’s out of my league… as they say.”

“Oh no, sir. I can’t believe that.” The standard response in a situation like this, whether he believed it or not. Jonathan researched the Accountant prior to taking the case with Angela and without knowing anything about Kristiane, he believed Nigel capable of the most heinous of crimes. He’d pored and grimaced, read and cringed at the atrocities carried out in the name of the Wallace Empire. Gruesome murders, violent tortures, the seizing of property meant for a community’s greater good, weapons, drugs, extortion and coercion. Nigel was behind all of it, he funded every bit of it. “Nobody’s perfect.”

“To me, she is,” Nigel said slowly, believing each word. “She’s independent, she’s ambitious, and she can snark you into next month, but she’s also sweet and affectionate. She makes me the most important man in her world, by just being in her life.”

Jonathan handed Nigel another strong cup of coffee when the man finished his first. “Why?”

“I helped her. I helped her become someone before she realized that she already was. In helping her, she found me.”

Identity had always been an elusive concept for Jonathan, as he had played so many different roles and molded himself so many outlets. From the outside observer, pressing his face up against the glass enclosure, Jonathan suspected that Nigel suffered the same affliction. The Accountant by night or behind closed doors while the approachable, affable and friendly producer by day.

“How? How did you do that?”

Nigel slid the coffee stirrer between his fingers on the surface of the counter, then repeated it with the reverse hands. It was a thoughtful musing move, toeing the line between conscious distraction and unconscious organizing of memories. “Kristiane is—she was born talented, a natural gift. But she came from a small town, born to unsupportive parents with smaller brains.”

The stirrer stopped its infinity pattern as Nigel thought of something else to add. “You’ve read about those parents,” he used the stirrer to point towards Jonathan’s chest, reeling him into the conversation, “that have made a baby… another child to save another.”

Jonathan merely nodded.

“For a match in bone marrow or the like, a natural blood donor or organ donor. If presented with such a terrible choice, I’d do the same, if I had a child,” the sad note of regret couldn’t be erased from Nigel’s tone. He was one of those few hopeless romantics in the world. “Kristiane,” he continued on a sigh, “was born for a similar purpose. Not to save a sibling or a family member. No. She was created to save her family business.” Anger darkened his brow and turned the ends of his lips down in a moue of distaste, judging from afar in Kristiane’s defense.

“What?” Pine asked, pretending not to follow to learn more. “She said her parents owned a bakery.”

“They did… they do, rather,” Nigel corrected reluctantly, the reminder leaving a bitter bile in his stomach. He’d met them only once, and it was an experience that he never wanted to repeat. “Their pride and joy, that damn bakery. Not their daughter. They work day and night, day in and day out for years to build that successful business. And it is! They realized, as you do,” he took a steadying breath, “that life isn’t forever and they needed an heir for their business.”

Pine understood Kristiane’s need for acceptance and reassurance if her parents were as Nigel described.

“Mr. and Mrs. Taylor hoped for a boy, but made do when God saw fit to give them Kristiane. Because God and Fate have a sense of humor, Kristiane wasn’t at all interested in running a bakery. She loves to eat, she even enjoys baking… but her talent belongs on stage, not in the kitchen.”

Based on Nigel’s turn of phrase, Jonathan finally understood Kristiane’s bias towards him since the beginning, why she kept him at arm’s length of further. Pine read between the lines and Nigel’s narrative, what Kristiane was subjected to as an unwanted and uncooperative child. “Where do you come in?” It was an honest and sincere question… perhaps his first.

“As I said, I helped her become someone before she realized she already was,” Nigel repeated with a bit more weight to it. “Her parents froze her out when she showed no enthusiasm for cupcakes… except consuming them, naturally. But making them… not at all… Mimic making them, yes!” He chuckled, recalling a low budget off-off-off Broadway showcase in which Kristiane participated and did that. “When I happened upon her, when I saw her in her Broadway debut show, she was… lost… she had no one who believed in her, and her own belief in herself began to erode and eat away at her confidence. Always cast in the chorus, she thought she’d…”

“You supported her.” It wasn’t a question, Jonathan was beginning to understand their relationship. Kristiane wasn’t helping Nigel, but that didn’t make her unimportant. In fact, it meant that she could be used as leverage against Nigel. The Accountant had a weak spot for this girl, and that connection could be exploited.

Nigel’s mobile phone chirped incessantly, interrupting his story about Kristiane.

He produced his iPhone from the breast pocket of his blazer and placed it upon the countertop, but the chirping didn’t come from that device. The businessman sprung to his feet as he realized that the noise came from his ‘other’ phone. He coughed nervously to pitifully cover the disruptive call from the device that he didn’t expect.

The nature of Jonathan’s investigation changed with that single phone call.

 ~*~*~*

“I didn’t know _this_ was a choice,” Kristiane eyed Jonathan and the container with a smirk. “To eat in or to go.”

Glancing at his watch, Jonathan all but pushed the brown paper bag into her hand and took her other. “I discovered another holiday place.” His voice sounded muffled as he led her away from the kitchen.

Her character shoes clattered with their hurried steps. “ _Really_ to go,” she commented at the back of his head and his urgency. Tension gripped his fingers in a grasp around her hand that tugged her along, battle ready, at attention, alert. “Pine, where are we going?”

Jonathan however didn’t answer, instead led her through the music room into the open area of the second floor where the cast were scattered, taking in their fill of lunch and break from the grueling pace of rehearsal. He then swiped his hotel room keycard to call an elevator when they arrived at the bank of them. He’d removed anything resembling his chef’s attired, and instead wore crisp, clean, smart clothing like a nicely dressed everyday man about London. Only in a hotel in midtown Manhattan.

Withdrawing her hand from Jonathan’s, Kristiane asked again, “What have you found? What—what are you so excited about?”

The elevator pinged its arrival to take them up to the 30th floor. In that moment, Kristiane noticed an identical brown paper bag in his hand to the one he’d given her. Jonathan had never eaten lunch with her. He made lunch for her while he fiddled around the kitchen planning future menus and checking inventory or placing orders online. But he brought a lunch too, and it changed the intention of their time together.

His free hand remained anchored on her lower back, a slight pressure to guide her to their destination, first onto the elevator and then the place he reserved for their ‘date.’ When they rounded a corner, a set of glass doors at the end of a carpeted hall led to an observation deck. The deck, decorated with stout square chairs and sofas, fake yet tasteful plants, overlooked Times Square. The oblong space spanned the length of the Marriott Marquis overlooking the traffic of Broadway and 7th Avenue. A glass wall surrounded the place for safety, but Jonathan had found another ideal spot. A lounge in the heart of the Big Apple.

A note posted on the exit door read: ‘Closed for private party.’ Jonathan ignored it and opened the door for his companion.

“Uh, Pine? That’s… that’s marked—”

“I know. No entry. But for us, Kristiane. Management graciously gave me an hour.” He sighed, looking at his watch again, wisely marking his time.

Against her inner instinct, she allowed herself to be escorted onto the balcony space. She hesitated because their dynamic shifted subtly in the past few minutes from friendly professional coworkers to more personal. Considering her wickedly complicated relationship with men, Kristiane balked at letting another close. But she felt committed, not only to Nigel, even though he hadn’t been nice to her in recent weeks (or hours). In her own way, she owed it to Jonathan, as a friend to be amenable.

Jonathan led her to the corner where a table and chairs had been arranged already, and pulled out her seat for her politely. The midday traffic blared below while Kristiane leveled her eyes on him as she sank into the chair. An interrogation lurked behind that gaze, a suspicion and belief.

“Jonathan?” One word communicated so much: What the fuck are you doing? What the hell is going on? Why have you brought me here?

He braced himself for her backlash, prepared for it, anticipated it, but he also had a plan – to use her. “Relax and let yourself enjoy the unexpected.”

Slowly she turned her body towards the table tucking her legs under the roughened white cloth. Her defensive nature would spring at a moment’s notice.

Instead Jonathan propped his elbows on the table, his fingers made a sweeping gesture towards himself. “Go on. Lay it on me, Kristiane. Curse me out. I’ll take it.”

Affronted by his ability to read her so well, she scowled at him. “I’m not! Just… what is this?”

“You looked… upset this morning. I saw you sneak in. Then I overheard your warmup…” Before his long and complicated conversation with Nigel.

To distract herself from her stormy argument with Nigel, Kristiane turned to music as she did when she needed balance. She outlined the stitching of the linen napkin with her forefinger as her thoughts turned introspective. Like a hangover, her emotions hung on her like a soiled drape. When she stole away to the rehearsal room that morning, she sang something that reflected her turmoil, a song that she used as practice because of the scales in it.

_Thought that she could trust you,_

_put aside her doubts,_

_she got burned,_

_but she’s learned,_

_she’s returned,_

_gone back inside…_

Autobiographical in nature after Nigel hurt her, the woman who sang the song distanced herself from the pain and betrayal by denying it happened to her. Kristiane sung it to fortify herself and face another day working, for Nigel, with Nigel…

_Hidden in the shadows,_

_till you asked her out,_

_said to come along on your ride_

_She’s closing up,_

_she’s moving on,_

_she’s not breaking down,_

_she’s not put upon,_

_she won’t cry,_

_she won’t sigh,_

_she won’t die,_

_she knows why, she’s gone._

Jonathan listened to Kristiane’s song, before Nigel came with his request for a favor. He’d been privy to a conversation that he shouldn’t have known about, and he could see the aftershocks rippling through both of them. Jonathan calculated his next moves to cater to both of them, to get them to talk to him, to earn their trust and advance his investigation of the ties to the Wallace Empire.

“How…” she began, her voice small and reedy. “How do you know its personal and not just a song?”

Jonathan sat back in his chair, studiously watching her, like he did before he met her. He picked his words carefully. “Ms. Taylor, I’ve had the great pleasure of watching you… tirelessly rehearse, repeatedly work lines and songs and dance moves. You’re talent is… I don’t have the theatre lingo down yet… but you have raw energy and great talent. You’re a star! Of the highest order. I can see that, as your castmates do.”

Slowly her eyes lifted from the hem of the cloth napkin on the table to his eyes during the course of his explanation, humbled by his compliments. Her defensive nature fell, crumbled under his praise.

“You’re very good, Kristiane,” he commended. “But on your own, in your own time, in your own space, you can’t lie.”

“You got all that… from watching me?” The question sounded more like a statement, a slowly pronounced proclamation to fully comprehend what Jonathan told her. She didn’t know whether to feel flattered or concerned.

“I’m in the service business. It serves me well to observe and know my clientele,” he covered with an explanation more plausible.

“Is this,” she nodded at the table and the till-then ignored lunch bags, “business or pleasure?”

Reaching for the prepacked sacks, he huffed a breathy chuckle. “This is lunch.”

Kristiane recognized his cagey response as a flirt with her and a mimic of her own behavior. He was too clever to admit that he considered this a date. She wouldn’t acknowledge that it was either. But if she were honest with herself, she relaxed and enjoyed his company while he ate along with her.

The conversation passed easily with quips and quick banter while discussing whatever subject came to mind, rehearsal, backstage happenings, kitchen foibles and client nightmares. Kristiane reacted to his stories with a matching or equivalent anecdote. Jonathan chose his words and history carefully, not to give too much away that would shed light on what brought him to New York.

With her last bite of authentic English cucumber sandwich, Kristiane snorted into her hand. “Am I keeping you from something, Pine?”

“Huh? Sorry?” He looked up at her from his mobile phone.

“That’s the 63rd time you glanced at the time… on your cell, your watch, or the big clock,” she pointed over her shoulder to the infamous Times Building where every New Year was rung in with celebration, “over there. I have to ask, am I keeping you from something?”

“I have a… an appointment—a, a, a meeting,” he stuttered through an explanation. “For—a quick journey downtown.”

“What’ll you be doing downtown?”

Jonathan debated whether to tell her or not, landing on a partial truth. “Mr. St Clair asked a favor of me.” It wasn’t a favor or request, but a distinct demand in his suave businessman assumption that if he said something, it would be done.

~*~*~*

Pine arrived at the corner of Noble and Broadway in that gray area between neighborhoods, not quite Tribeca but not yet Noho either. The streets were narrower than midtown with one lane for through traffic and one side of the street parking. Buildings stood just as tall and crowded as midtown, but the sidewalks narrower. He missed the sign for Aldo’s Tailor Shop behind the metal scaffolding that supported the face of a thirty story brick building in the midst of construction.

The store front was as bland and generic as most were in New York City. There were no advertisements for winterizing a wedding dress or specials on two trousers and a shirt money-saving deals. Rather the eight by ten window pane had Aldo’s printed in simple text in the upper right corner. This establishment wasn’t about money, but productivity. Knowing what Jonathan did about Nigel’s pursuits, the less flash and attention the better.

Pine watched the place for thirty minutes from across the street, casing the customers that entered one by one, mapping the employee movements inside and how the clientele were treated.

Each transaction he witnessed took approximately four minutes to conclude, and all appeared to be the run of the mill tailor shop exchanges. Customers dropped off trousers or shirts and blazers for alterations or retrieved their hemmed, sewed or lengthened garments. All but two transactions were settled by cash.

A female employee, an African-American woman about 5’6” sat in the back, diligently worked at a sewing machine. Occasionally she popped up to hang her completed projects on a clothes rack beside her. Pine guessed at her height on one of those breaks in her flow. She wore white iPod earbuds and he saw her mouth the lyrics or groove in her seat when the music moved her. She paid little to no attention to any of the customers or her two coworkers.

The other two employees were male, both African-American, one in his late twenties, who appeared to be a fashion enthusiast, recent graduate with an affinity for bright colors. He appeared to be running receipts and bookkeeping. The other, an older man in his forties, tended customers and used the register.

Jonathan kept an eye on his time as Nigel’s instructions for retrieval and return were specific to the minute. At precisely 3:17pm, he crossed the street and entered the shop. A chime sounded at the exact moment that a bell jingled above the door. Nigel told him to listen for the chime or Jonathan had missed the correct signal to proceed with his assigned business. The chime supposedly went off once an hour at seventeen minutes past the hour.

Politely Pine greeted the teller employee with his tight-lipped night manager smile, unassuming and forgettable. “Good afternoon.”

The two male employees stopped in anticipation, alerted by the combination of the chime and the new arrival. The older of the two asked, “How can I help you?” his accent suggested South African, Cape Town or Port Elizabeth.

Reciting the script that Nigel prepped for him, Jonathan slowly annunciated, “I’m here on behalf of Mr. Shilling. He asked me to fetch his parcel due for pickup today. I’ll pay cash.”

The air stilled and the atmosphere in the shop went from sterile to tense at Jonathan’s prepared speech. He froze at the unmistakable and distinct click of a Smith & Wesson M&P from under the counter, safety off, cocked and loaded.

Pine flinched instinctively, his sinews on high alert nearly drove him to the floor, to hit the deck, to make himself as small as possible.

He chomped down on the inside of his cheek to remain standing, fighting the ingrained muscle memory of flanking the floor. Despite every fighter/soldier compulsion demanding that he get low, Jonathan stood stoically. His jaw clenched and it was the only alarm his body gave off in the silence, in the long drawn out quiet.

The store attendant with his finger on the trigger kept one hand on the hidden gun under the lip of the counter and used his other to grip a landline phone. His dark, rounded, glassy eyes never left the man at the business end of his shotgun. Prepared to pull the trigger, he too stood at the ready for a threat to reign down upon them. He hit a preprogrammed button on the phone to make an outgoing phone call.

The waiting was painful with every tick on the clock scraping by like the talon on a blackboard, slowed to a crawl.

A countermeasure. A failsafe. A test that Nigel explained explicitly. Play it out, Pine. See it through.

Among Nigel’s explicit instructions, no sudden movements, nothing that could be construed as a signal to an accomplice outside. A cough or a sneeze could be interpreted as such. Pine was given specific gestures at precise moments. Until he spoke the code, he had to bite back his fight or flight reaction. He’d be fine if all the steps were taken in the order he was coached. He loathed having a gun pointed at him, at his stomach, based on the height of the counter.

Too many things could go wrong, and if the man eyeing him with suspicion was too quick with the trigger…

“Mr. Shilling,” the Cape Town man spoke evenly into the phone, “A man has arrived—” Abruptly his explanation for his phone call stopped. He appeared to be listening to the person on the other line, Nigel, the Accountant. Now also known as Mr. Shilling.

Jonathan wondered the cost of all those separate identities, and what it would cost him… what it would cost himself…

Jonathan Pine, the night manager- Jonathan Pine, half psychopath- Jonathan Pine, human hand grenade- Jonathan Pine, double agent- Jonathan Pine, former British solider- Jonathan Pine, Broadway caterer.

He was all of them and none of them at the same time.

The cashier cleared his throat gruffly, shifting his gaze from a spot over Jonathan’s shoulder to his face. “Code?”

The double agent blinked twice in an exaggerated manner. “12B, 37N, 89E, 11R, Brazil to Morocco, Onyx, Helium, Harley, and Apple.” All ridiculous, random words and numbers, but precisely the order that Nigel gave him before taking this dangerous mission, to retrieve a package.

The tense silence stretched on and none of the three men involved in a stand-off in a shop didn’t dare move, until the code had been verified. Then Jonathan heard the shift of the safety reengaging. He released the oxygen that got caught in his chest in the wait for clearance.

Although the immediate threat passed, Jonathan’s trial had just begun.

*~*~*~

Tucking the nondescript brown box under his arm, Pine followed Nigel’s instruction, taking a left outside the shop – another step of clearance. The parcel had some weight to it, he guessed around ten to fifteen pounds. It was similar in weight to the amount of meat he ordered from the butcher to cook for the cast and crew. The contents inside didn’t move or slide around within it. Circling the block to take the subway back uptown, Jonathan finally spoke lowly, “Did you get the coordinates of the shop?”

Angela spoke into his earpiece in answer, “Got ‘em. We’ll get someone on that shop now.”

Sparks of stress jabbed at Pine’s neck and he cursed under his breath to release it, jogging down the concrete steps with determination. He was reminded of pounding out his frustration on the beach in Mallorca when Roper ‘claimed’ him. The battle between his internal moral compass and the conscience that berated him for the laws he had to break to see ultimate justice.

“You up for this?” Angela allowed concern to seep into her words. Her asking was more about bolstering her agent rather than doubt in his skills to see this through. She couldn’t know what to expect for this mission, but knew that she would’ve pushed him towards it anyway, even when thrown it at last minute as it was.

“Fine. Fine… I’m fine,” he spat back as he shoved his way through the turnstile. “I despise having a gun on me… especially when I can’t see it!” He isolated himself from the other pedestrians using public transport, waiting for the train with the rest of the subway rats, human and otherwise. He stood stoically, like a statue to draw no attention.

“Got Isaac in place to x-ray the parcel,” Angela said slowly as a diversion from the brush with violence Jonathan experienced.

“Any chance of a decoy to give him?” Pine desperately wanted to get into the box under his arm, since he put his life on the line for it. And it still wasn’t entirely cleared of that, until he completed all of Nigel’s steps.

“We haven’t the time. We’ve got to let this transaction happen. It’s not ideal, but given the parameters you got, I’m inclined to play it safe. This time.”

“Fine,” he gruffed again. “See that Isaac is ready. Twenty-eight minutes and counting before I’m due back.”

When the train arrived at the platform, Pine situated himself again in a secluded area of the car. He plopped down in one plastic seat that still felt warm from a departing passenger. He placed the box on his lap for a topical inspection, “There are no tracking labels or postage paid stamps. No stickers of any kind. 12 by 7 by 4 brown box sealed with clear sticky tape.”

Angela fed her board with a post-it with that information. “Is it a new box? Do you see evidence that it’s been opened before?”

He stated with a chagrin, “Brand new. We’re not getting into this before… I’ll have to hand this off.”

Angela sighed in disappointment along with Pine. “Try to stay by him when he opens… if he lets you. Otherwise we’ll have to run with the scans we get from Isaac.”

Pine peered down at his watch and up at the subway map overhead on the other side of the car, calculating the time allotted and the stops to pass through. “I’ll let you know when I’m there.”

Radio silence followed.

*~*~*~

“Nine minutes, Angela.” Pine felt the deadline closing on him. He didn’t know what Nigel would do to him if he was late, but Pine didn’t want to test it. He needed to maintain his position as trusted valet and double agent. “Do I have time?”

“Book it, Pine,” she instructed, knowing tourist traffic would slow his progress.

Pine got to street level at the corner of 42nd street and 8th avenue, from the subway stop under Port Authority. He’d passed people riding the escalator, taking the steps two at a time. He jogged to the corner, and dodged traffic coming from both directions. The sidewalk was cluttered with late afternoon crowds, people getting out of work, people from Jersey about to take in a night of culture and locals regretting the choice of cutting through the Times Square area.

“Isaac’s set up behind the souvenir shop on the corner for 45th and 8th. He needs three minutes to scan and weigh.”

Pine sprinted along 8th avenue, hugging the commercial vehicles parked illegally on the north side of the street. He progressed better in the street, bypassing people shuffling through on the sidewalk. He dove into the entrance three blocks up, scraping his upper arm against someone’s chest in his haste. He bee lined to the door in the back, the employees already instructed through the owner by a very stern English woman by phone not to stop him.

A former bank teller turned government hacker/consultant Isaac stood poised for Jonathan’s rushed entrance into the backroom. The man looked like a typical overgrown cyber kid with thick glasses and a baseball cap turned the wrong way on his head. He hid his genius well. He swiftly took the package from Pine’s hands with the delicacy of a baby but the haste of a bomb. “Angela’s on speaker,” he pointed to a nearby landline phone. The x-ray machine, one that appeared to be borrowed from the TSA, made little noise as the box was fed through on the conveyer belt.

Isaac squinted at the black and white screen and announced, “The package weighs 7.43 pounds and the dimensions are 12.7 centimeters by 17.5 by precisely 5.” He rambled on about the quality of the wrapping, the uniqueness of the box itself while Jonathan studied his watch, willing the minutes to crawl. MI6 needed this break, needed all this information, but he also had a deadline to meet in six minutes.

As the minute hand struck five minutes, Angela’s voice sounded through the backroom crowded with overstock I heart New York City t-shirts and knickknacks, “Pine, go! You’ve a deadline.”

“Got enough to go on?” Pine asked taking hold of the parcel once more as if it were the Holy Grail.

“We’ll work it! GO!”

“Check in tonight,” Pine confirmed already half out the door.

He took off like a race car at the Indy 500, back through the shop of cheap merchandise. Plowing through a mass of tourists waiting for the traffic light, he hit the pavement running. He bolted up the block, weaving through people almost as if he were a true New Yorker. When he got to the escalator at the ground level of the Marriott Marquis, he took the crawling staircase two at a time. He barked an apology at a woman who had her feet trampled in his wake.

Anxiously glancing at his watch, he booked it across the second floor, past the theatre, to an isolated corner and to a hidden staircase beyond. Heaving a deep pull to fill his lungs, he ascended the steps, his heartrate double timing the pump of his legs. Oxygen burned the back of his throat as adrenaline coursed through his veins, propelling him up. Fear skirted his vertebrae one at a time, mounting with every step he took. Sweat stuck on his brow and down his back, heat pouring off him.

Pine ripped the door on the fourteenth floor back and sprinted through to his rendezvous point with Nigel for delivery at one minute to deadline. Nigel sat cool as a cucumber in an empty office with a desk and chair.

“Down to the wire there, Pine,” he greeted without a care in the world, it seemed. But his gaze sunk to the box, locked on and zeroed in as his personal salvation. “Brilliant work. Seems I need to gift you a pair of trainers.”

Suppressing his heavy breathing, Pine leaned against the bare wall, his energy waning under the stress of the past ten minutes. He knew better than to ask about the contents of the box, but he stayed quiet in the hopes of learning the truth.

“I apologize,” Nigel alighted to his feet to pat Pine on the shoulder. “Unfortunate but necessary precautions have to be followed. This,” he took the box from Jonathan easily, “is time-sensitive and for my eyes only… a privacy that I assume you understand.”

The unspoken questions hung there between them, why did Jonathan Pine complete a retrieval for Nigel St. Clair? And for what?

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve recently been role playing with Kristiane on a blog (with Jonathan Pine). I wanted to branch out and try new things, and the rp gave me the ideal scenario for that. I had an amazing partner, someone that I’ve admired for a long time. That’s why I haven’t posted anything new. Since my partner’s recently decided to take a break from rp-ing (a decision that I support 150%), I’ve wanted to somehow try to recapture Jonathan Pine and Kristiane on my own.
> 
> Since I’ve been missing the rp and the chemistry between Jonathan and Kristiane, and with the vital encouragement from 4 friends, I’ve decided to try writing a The Night Manager fanfiction. 
> 
> This isn’t going to be a rehash of the rp, at all. I’ve taken a departure from that, incorporating an entirely different plot to make into a cohesive (hopefully) story.
> 
> This is a different genre for me, so any comments and constructive criticism are welcome. Thank you for reading!


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